On Tuesday, February 13 community members participated in the second of a series of workshops on storytelling and sustainability. The workshops are a part of a new initiative by Sustain Dane and Living In Balance, an outreach program from MG&E.
The workshop was co-facilitated by Takeyla Benton, a writing and publishing coach for women of color and co-director of the national Mother’s Day story event “Listen To Your Mother” and Jen Rubin, co-facilitator of The Moth-Madison.
Event organizer and Sustainable Neighborhoods Initiative coordinator Gloria Castillo explained the connection between teaching people storytelling skills and putting a diverse, human face on how sustainability can be broadly defined. While participants learned about the elements of verbal storytelling in the first workshop in January, this time they got to practice telling stories on the theme of “when they learned that their wellbeing depended on others.”
Telling deeply personal stories and having those stories be workshopped in a group was a leap of faith for participants, but Cara Erickson explained what she gained from telling her story about her adventure in the Boundary Waters. The skills she learned helped her understand how to share her experiences in a way that delivers a message about why sustainability is about human connection.
The two workshops culminate in a Story Slam at Cargo Coffee East for storytellers’ friends and family. For more information on the storytelling workshop series, contact Sustain Dane.