Starting from the needs we decided to address, we wanted to produce a methodology that could help Youth workers, professionals and facilitators to: Create safe spaces (workshops) where people from different backgrounds can interact and communicate creatively; Gain better understanding and self awareness related to ones story and the ability we have in shaping our journey in life; Obtain new instruments for self representation in delivering one's story to the others (free from exploitation and appropriation). The tools we decided to use are photography and storytelling. Storytelling, because framing our experience as a Story helps us undertand the active role we have in it, furthering our self awareness; Photography because an image is immediate in its form and communication, delivering meaning on the subconscious level. Both media enable people to express their experiences beyond the use of linear rationality of language. Both storytelling and photography provide for a transitional space where people can exchange feelings and thoughts.
Every journey is a story and every story is a journey. But not every story is the same; learning each other stories is the fastest way to know and understand each other, as the similarity of every journey/Story is that the main character goes through a variety of experiences and gains wisdom and insight at the end of it.This is the starting point of our project in which we want to develop a methodology to connect young refugees and other young people and let them share stories, to exchange their point of views and experience and better understand the common elements in their journeys even if coming from different background. The project's aim at satisfying the need of inclusion of young people with a refugee background in the local community and among their peers, but to reach inclusion the project needs to first address other needs: the need for safe spaces to further free interaction, The need of self-awareness to better understand the "story" one wants to deliver, The need of representation so that one's story can be visible and recognized. to reach these objectives we decided to use Storytelling and Photography.