In 2008, the Museum of the Person International Network (Brazil, Portugal, United States (US), and Canada) and the Center for Digital Storytelling, or CDS, located in the US) organised a global campaign to commemorate May 16 as an international celebration of life stories. 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. Using a wide variety of in-person events/conversations and information and communication technologies (ICTs), this initiative is especially dedicated to celebrating and promoting life story projects that have made a difference within neighbourhoods, communities, and societies as a whole.
Organisers are drawing upon an interactive website, called Ausculti (the Esperanto word for "listen"), to assist with information sharing and coordination of the campaign. Through this online platform, CDS and the Museum of the Person are calling on people to gather in community halls, classrooms, public parks, theatres, auditoriums, etc. to share their stories on May 16. They are also calling on organisations to mark the day on their websites and host virtual story circles via online chats and exchanges, and publication of new stories. Some of the other activities being suggested - and facilitated through an activity guide, available online - include:
- "story circles" in people's homes;
- public open-microphone performances of stories;
- exhibitions of stories in public venues as image, text, and audio-visual materials;
- celebratory events to honour local storytellers, practitioners, and organisations;
- open houses for organisations with a life-story-sharing component;
- online simultaneous gatherings, postings, and story exchanges;
- print, radio, and television broadcast programming on life stories, and;
- documentaries that feature oral histories and story exchanges.
Specifically, public events are being planned in cities around the world, and ICTs are being used to connect and engage participants. An interactive online map shares details about these events - in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. This site is also a place for sharing thoughts about issues in storytelling work, storytelling examples and case studies, curriculum for schools, and other activities. To cite one specific example of an event, on May 16, people around the world are invited to participate in a 20-minute-long online story circle on the 3-dimensional (3D) platform Second Life. Any group - professional or not - is encouraged to get organised and participate on May 16; an object known as "talking stick" will be universally circulated around Second Life in the days prior to the Day. In each story circle, each teller will prompt the next teller the American Indian way, by handing her the talking stick. The topic is a "miracle story", a story centred around what, by its impact on the teller's life, surprised him or her.
The founder and director of one of the participating organisations explains that "Our two organizations see the movement to share life stories as a critical part of the democratic process. 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." The director of the other organisation comments, "What has been lacking is a common call to celebrate all these different practices. 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..."
Center for Digital Storytelling and Museum of the Person.
Email from Siobhan Warrington to The Communication Initiative on May 7 2008; and International Day for Sharing Life Stories website.