Challenge

I used to volunteer every summer at a home for teenage moms and after one  year I decided that I wanted to get more involved, so I applied for a position that  required me to go every weekend and even brainstorm ideas for new activities.  Sometimes it was really hard to come up with new ideas because it was hard to  connect with the girls and get them to open up in order to find out what they’d  be interested in doing.

Selection

After careful thinking, I decided to try storytelling. The girls had a hard time  trusting the volunteers because they didn’t know us enough to trust us and they  thought we had perfect lives and had nothing in common with them, so  storytelling was a way for us to open up to them and in return, they’d open up to  us.

Application

In order to find out what the girls would be interested to do, all the volunteers  reunited with them one day and prepared a storytelling party. The main goal  was to get them to open up, so we started with some light, funny or scary  stories. Then, one by one, all the volunteers started sharing some personal  stories about their lives and given the girls’ pasts I decided to share a story  about struggling with anxiety and depression after a mentally abusive  relationship and how after seeking help I learned many things about myself and  realized that I was a strong independent woman with big dreams and was  willing to work hard in order to achieve them. The activity was a success  because many girls could relate with some of our struggles.

Insight

By applying the storytelling tool, we also learned that despite having a child,  they were very interested in finishing school and going to college, so they asked  if we could set up activities that could help achieve that. We set up preparation  classes for college and many other activities like painting, programming,  sewing, leadership classes, etc.

Approach

Next time I would use the same tool because it was a fun a meaningful way to  solve a problem where we were able to come together and find solutions that  would benefit everyone.

