May 16: International Day for Sharing Life Stories

The Museum of the Person International Network (Brazil, Portugal, USA and Canada) and the Center for Digital Storytelling (USA) have announced Listen! – International Day for Sharing Life Stories, an international celebration of life stories to take place on May 16th 2008. They are launching the project website, www.ausculti.org, to assist with information sharing and coordination of the campaign. The goal of the campaign is to gain broad recognition of May 16 as an annual day for sharing, listening to, and gathering the stories of people’s lives.

“Our two organizations see the movement to share life stories as a critical part of the democratic process,” states Joe Lambert, founder and director of the Center for Digital Storytelling. “As our own work has expanded around the globe from our respective countries, we have found ourselves in dialogue with colleagues who have countless different approaches and perspectives to life story, but who share the sense that this work is vital to our contemporary societies.”

“What has been lacking is a common call to celebrate all these different practices,” adds Karen Worcman, founder and director of the Museum of the Person. “Whether it is helping to collect a local oral history, encouraging new learners to share their life in writing, producing stories using analog or digital media, or exhibition of life stories online or through mobile technologies, we felt we needed a day to bring all these different practices – different roads to the same destination – together. This is what inspired us to join in this call. We want this day to be especially dedicated to celebrating and promoting life story projects that have made a difference within neighborhoods, communities, and societies as a whole.”

CDS and the Museum of the Person are calling on people to gather in community halls, classrooms, public parks, theaters, auditoriums on May 16 to share their stories.

More info: www.ausculti.org