Stories provide context and meaning for our lives and can inspire us to think more critically about how we fit into the world and ultimately about what responsibilities we have to each other.

 

StoryArk’s goal is to make sure all youth voices are uplifted, amplified and heard. To that end, this summer, students from Stillwater Area and South Washington County Public Schools participated in a three week podcast camp to share stories that are often absent from the mainstream narrative. High school students from European backgrounds along with teenagers whose families have immigrated to the US from Ghana, Somalia, Cameron, Ethiopia, Palestine, El Salvador, Colombia and Mexico connected, communicated, and collaborated

together to create original podcasts.

 

They learned how to successfully manage conflict and to communicate respectfully across difference as they considered the questions: Who am I? Who are you? What’s our story? How are we going to tell it? Working together in three different teams, the students created the two original narrative podcast episodes and a non-fiction podcast that were recorded live on stage at the StoryArk Festival held at the Phipps Center for the Arts.