Visual Story Telling in Youth Work

Visual storytelling gives us a space to communicate the messages, emotions and narratives in a way that the readers and viewers can be affected by the developed messages. Through the photos that are developed by the young people can be used to give messages concerning to the lives of the young people in the communities. Thus, visual storytelling provides more detailed account of the issues that are presented during the photo voice activities implemented. 

During the implementation of the Photo Voice activities, the participants take photographs and accompany the narratives with the photographs. Thus, storytelling becomes the component of their work. ^[1] Therefore, increasing the skills of young people to develop messages to address the issues that they define is important. In addition to that, for making the results to engage in political and social action, conveying the stories in more attractive and distinct way, will help the young people to engage in more constructively. Therefore, we touched upon the visual storytelling with this project to engage young people, rewrite the narratives that they have developed during the photo voice activities and prepare them for the exhibition and photobooks helped us to increase the impact of the project. 

The visual storytelling has been used to help the young people to develop spaces through storytelling and photo voice methods. The usage of visual storytelling and photo voice help young people to develop their technical skills while empowering them. The young people gain technical skills on developing images, learn about narrating which helps them to develop their self-expression skills. In addition to that the young people have opportunity to resist oppression and act on their perceptions through the photos as well as putting their experiences on words. The visual storytelling can serve as well as a form of activism that brings the young people to connect with each other and make them engage in wider socio-political context. ^[2]

The narratives that the young people develop, convey not only their interpretation but the information through the programs. The visual stories provide the viewer an example of the explanation of the young person about the issues that they see while providing a narrative inquiry. As it has the individual nature of delivering the message from the perspective of the participant by using the reality that they see is important.^[3] Visual storytelling is a youth-centred approach by engaging young people to reflection and make them tell a story. It increases the engagement of young people during the reflection of the images and facilitates their expression and communication. Moreover, it helps their cognitive development and build their capacity to narrate complex realities from their perspectives. In addition to that, visual storytelling might help the communication to articulate issues that are difficult to conceptualise and express especially for young people.^[4]

Visual storytelling can be used as a research approach derived from the photo voice and photo elicitation methods. The young people value this approach due to their direct involvement in the research study and its process of facilitating their involvement to the process. In addition to that, the young people claimed that, the visual storytelling is : 

• Being a draw card during recruitment and increasing positive feelings about the research
• Being fun 
• Promoting self-understanding
• Promoting expression, communication and focus during interviews 

Henceforth, it can be said that visual storytelling helps young people to talk about the details in their lives which might be harder for them to open up during the process of reflection of the pictures that are developed. ^[5] From this perspective, we have included the visual storytelling methodology to the project to promote and facilitate the young people’s expression concerning their lives and the issues that they see as important. 

Visual storytelling has pathways to implement to reach out the individuals to tell the messages concerning to the realities. As it is the part of our project, we have adopted guidelines^[6][7][8][9] to our context to address the issues of young people in our communities with methods that are already proven and implemented with the young populations. We have developed a methodology starting from developing the idea and interpreting the narratives to the exhibition phase. The process has 3 step methodology for the implementation of visual storytelling workshops.  

1. Develop : The photos are already taken, however how we present them and the structure that we use is important. Therefore, we have to agree on the common message before taking an action. During the process, the participants work on their ideas concerning to the outputs of the photo walk activities that are already implemented in previous stage. The idea is that they reflect and discuss about the photos that they have through brainstorming and already develop narrations by the participants in the first stages. That will help them to increase the impact during the action phase and re-narrate the narrations that are already done and add additional messages without changing the context but putting their understandings and interpretations to call for action. 

During this phase, they are asked to answer the following questions : 

• Is the story motivating the audience? 
• Is it relatable by the audience? 
• Which words should be used? 
• What are red, yellow and green flags while telling a story from our community perspective? 
• How we can make the stories easy sharing for the outer audience? 
• What triggers we will use? 

During the development process, it is better to identify the red, yellow and green flags for the community. In example, if we are going to use pictures that will trigger anger in the community that would be considered as a red flag, or if the pictures that we will choose might contribute to already existing structures of poverty or exclusion than, we have to skip these pictures in order do no harm for the community. Therefore, planning process plays a huge role on what the stage of action and change will be constructed. 

• Action: The action taking plays a vital role on reaching to policy makers and the community to make the issues visible. As we have documented already the issues under Photo Voice activities that are implemented during the photo walks and narratives are developed, our role during this stage to plan the action and make these stories more visible and more provocative to push the people without creating no harm. During the action planning, first we have to identify the photos that we will use without rewriting and reconstructing the narratives. 

Choosing Photos: We have to understand that even though we have consent while making these photos, they might create harm on the people who are portrayed or contribute to the structure that fuels the discrimination or the inequalities in our communities. Thus, while choosing photos rather than its aesthetical value, our priority should be that they do not contribute these issues and promotes the change against to these issues.

Narrate : During the previous activities, the photos will be developed and narrations will be done. However, they can be shorter, or longer than it should be and it might need to be adopted to give the proper messages. During this process, the narration will be done with the participants concerning to their photos and they will develop texts and receive feedbacks concerning to the texts that they have developed. 

While narrating, you can use two different approaches. Either “First-Person” or “Third-Person”. If you write in “First-Person”, consider the approach that you talk about your experiences while in third-person, you are talking about the experiences of the other person. Each story has introduction, body and conclusion. While developing the story and harmonizing the story with the pictures, please consider, how you will develop the introduction, body and conclusion of your story. 

Even though, there are several options to create a story, we use the SAMS ( Story, Audience, Message and Style ) Guideline. While using this guideline : 

Story : 

• What is the story?
• What has changed from the beginning of the story?

Audience : 

• Who is the audience for this piece?
• What in the piece tells you that it was created for this audience?

Message : 

• What is the message of this piece? is there more than one message? if so, what are the additional messages?

Style : 

• Comment on the style of this piece. How would you describe this piece? Is it fiction or non- fiction? Is it poetic? Is it a personal story? 
• What are the techniques the artists used to convey their message? 

While dealing with the style section, consider that you as an individual can be inspired by anyone and use the idea to promote your ideas. However, the keeping it fictional is our main point to send our messages concerning to the issues regarding inclusivity and the social inclusion. After answering these questions, you can start to do the design agreed within the group to convey the messages within the project. 

The following model can be used during this phase prior to development of the design to increase the quality of the storytelling as well as the clear-cut planning for the change phase. 

Design : Our aesthetic concerns might play a role on developing the exhibition materials at the first stage. However, we believe that the message is important alike the quality. Thus, the participants should be provided information concerning to the design of the Photo books with the visual stories. Therefore, we have developed the guidelines in below to create a common scheme for the design of the photo books and the development of the materials as a result of the project. 

Here the sample design material can be downloaded used within this project  : http://links.verdesur.org/photo-book-page-design-en

After choosing photos and creating the narration, the following questions should be used to reflect with the participants about the value of their work before developing the design. During the design development, there are two things to consider. We have developed the designs to be used in InDesign, Adobe Express and Illustrator Programs as they are compatible with our planning. However, the designs can be adoptable in Canva or likewise design tools. 

As a last phase, now you have to plan how to call for an action with your visual stories. 

• Change : Initiating the social change through pictures requires a lot of planning from understanding the perspectives of the target groups as well as involving the third parties to the activities that are planned to promote the issues. In addition to that, receiving feedback is important to understand the audience’s perspectives as well as monitoring and evaluating the change that is trigged through the exhibitions or the publications that are implemented within the process. 

Invite : As in the action phase, the audience that you want to involve is already decided. However, you have to develop a strategy to communicate as well as reach out these target groups to engage them for the social action. In example, which channels do you need to use to invite people who are decision makers. To reach out the young people, you might use Instagram or TikTok due to high usage among the young people but you cannot use the same channel to reach out the policy makers. So, you have to identify your tools to invite the people and the strategy about reaching out. During this phase, you have to follow the steps below: 

1. Identify the relevant stakeholders to share your products i.e. stories 
2. Develop a strategy to reach out to them ( through social media, mails, phone calls, paper invitations etc. ) 
3. Follow-up on your strategy and invite/direct people to the results developed 

After you have a list of invitees, the plan is to develop the exhibition space or the online space for publishing and sharing. In addition to that, you can decide on hashtags to promote the publishing and sharing process to be used to call for action. 

Publish and Share : During this project, we have developed plans 4 exhibitions in national contexts and 1 exhibition in international context. However, the plans are subject to change as the country groups will work on the exhibitions during the visual story phases. Developing an exhibition is not an easy task to address the social issues. Here is our check list for an exhibition : 

Printing and design standard important to keep the attention of the audience in a steady way. In addition to that, the location plays a huge role. If it is going to be in a café or a shopping mall or an art gallery, changes the audience that you are planning to reach out. In example, if you want to reach out the young people who are not involved in artist to attract them to engage in this discussion, the cafés as public spaces might be a better place to do the exhibition. Therefore, there is a need to consider these aspects before publishing and sharing. 

Another issue is that, the social media strategy. As social media has become the predominant means of global communication, you have the option to share your story on these platforms. However, it’s important to note that if you decide to use Facebook or Instagram and want to track the reach and engagement of your post or video, you must create a dedicated Facebook page for your campaign or set up an Instagram business account. This is because statistical data is not accessible for regular personal account activities. You can add hashtags that you will decide in the previous section. 

Review the process: To understand the impressions of the outer audience about the exhibition or the publication, the feedback process is important. For that, we have developed a feedback form to be used during the exhibitions in our project to engage the outer audience to the process as well as give them a space to express their thoughts and opinions about the overall process. 

The below form can be developed as a Google Form or Microsoft Forms to use out in the exhibitions to receive the feedback from the participants through QR Code applications. That can be an another usage of it to reduce the paper waste and provide sustainable solutions on gathering feedback according to your target groups. 

The above form is an initial form for the activities that can be used during the exhibition and it can be extended according to the plan that is developed by the participants while preparing the exhibition. The information can be used to increase the quality of the other screenings or exhibitions of the stories while can provide a pathway to edit the online material which is already publicised in the online platforms. Moreover, the feedback form should be present or provided for the online interactions to understand the contextual aspect by revising and making necessary changes to adopt the online platforms. 

For social media and online publications, following statistical information will give you an aspect on the impact of your work. To do so, you can use Social Media Stats ( Impressions ), E-mail Stats ( if you have used a emailing tool such as Mailchimp ), Google Analytics ( Website statistics ). 

Lastly, call-to-action instruction to audience to inspire a response is important. You should provide information or ready-to-share templates for the audience to share their experiences while promoting your stories.

The method used to implement the visual storytelling workshops are explained under the relevant section with 2-day programme on the activities. 

^[1] Palibroda,B.; Krieg, B.; Murdock,L; Havelock J.(2009),  A Practical Guide to PhotoVoice : Sharing Pictures, Telling Stories and Changing Communities, The Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence https://rpay.link/guide/pdf20.pdf

^[2] Greene, S., Burke, K. J., & McKenna, M. K. (2018). A Review of Research Connecting Digital Storytelling, Photovoice, and Civic Engagement. Review of Educational Research, 88(6), 844–878. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45277267

^[3] Simmonds, S., Roux, C., & Avest, I. ter. (2015). Blurring the Boundaries between Photovoice and Narrative Inquiry: A Narrative-Photovoice Methodology for Gender-Based Research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 14(3), 33-49. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691501400303

^[4] Drew SE, Duncan RE, Sawyer SM. Visual Storytelling: A Beneficial But Challenging Method for Health Research With Young People. Qualitative Health Research. 2010;20(12):1677-1688. doi:10.1177/1049732310377455

^[5] Drew  Sarah; Guillemin Marilys (2014) From photographs to findings: visual meaning-making and interpretive engagement in the analysis of participant-generated images, Visual Studies, 29:1, 54-67, DOI: 10.1080/1472586X.2014.862994

^[6] Share your Story – A How to Guide for Digital Story Telling – SAMHSA  https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/programs_campaigns/brss_tacs/samhsa-storytelling-guide.pdf

^[7] Seeing is Believing – A Guide to Visual Story Telling Best Practices – ResourceMedia  http://www.resource-media.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Visual-storytelling-guide.pdf

^[8] Stories from Main Street – Storytelling Guide | Smithsonian  – https://museumonmainstreet.org/sites/default/files/storytelling_guide_final.pdf

^[9]Story Telling Handbook for Young Activists – AKTIV UNGDOM  https://milagers.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Storytelling_handbook_young_activists_MILagers.pdf