Sharing Our Story
Reviewed by: Connie Cordon
Review date: March 19, 2025
Site Link: https://www.sharingourstory.com/
Archive Link:
- https://archive.ph/TEiaa
- https://archive.ph/v9tax (Workshop page)
Keywords: LatinX Studies, Cultural Studies, Public Humanities, Digitization, Project Design and Management
Data Sources:
- Verbal recordings of participants
- Personal and/or stock photos chosen by participants to use for own videos
- Recorded panel discussions
Processes:
- Reaching out to local communities and institutions to recruit participants for workshops
- Locating community buildings to hold multiple workshops and panel discussions (libraries, universities, churches, etc.)
- Marketing workshops via digital outreach or word of mouth within community
- Outsourcing moderators, interpreters, cultural performances, and catering for workshops (unless held digitally)
- Coordinating & instructing participants on how to create short digital narratives using text and image of their choice
- Producing and transcribing videos to be screened at future workshops
- Photographing and recording discussion panels to be uploaded to website
- Adding short video descriptions to accompanying website
Presentation:
The Sharing Our Story home page displays a photographic banner featuring older individuals raising their hand in unison, which looks like a public workshop/rally. Below is the introduction and description of the five person organization, which offers its services to nonprofits, public, and private organizations. Their service, specifically, is to help create workshops collecting the community's memories together in a public forum. The workshop itself operates as a form of engagement and self empowerment within the community– the videos are an end-product of the ‘building bridges’ which are then posted online to the public. On the left hand side, there are links to the different digital projects created, a calendar for workshops, a testimonial page from collaborators and participants, and a photo gallery. On the project pages, there are several embedded videos via Vimeo of the 3 minutes videos created by participants. Most of the videos on the website do not include a title, description, or even the author of the video. In order to view the video content on a larger screen, you either open the video link in a separate tab or extend to full size screen.
Digital Tools Used:
- Vimeo
Languages:
- English
- Languages native to the participant in oral history (Spanish, Arabic, Swahili, and more)
Review
Sharing Our Story is a five-person, grassroots organization in Pittsburgh that offers workshop services to non-profit, public, and private organizations, which allows members of their community to openly speak with others about their struggles as immigrants and refugees. These workshops' end products are 3-minute videos created by the participants themselves under the guidance of instructors, giving them creative and literary freedom in sharing their story. The team members have expertise in diverse areas, including anthropology, economics, early childhood education, photography and business.
Since the team members reside in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, most topics are about immigrating to the city, the cultural confrontations experienced, and how they have formed relationships in the community.
The aim of the project is to facilitate public engagement and discussion among communities by conducting workshops, in which participants are encouraged to talk about their shared struggles. When participants are able to speak about their personal stories, viewers can engage intimately as members of that particular community instead of viewing it as a generic “group”. These in-person workshops increase public awareness of organizational missions and bridge commonalities in the community. The workshop leaders provide tools for the participants to create and edit their own 3-minute videos, which are then played in the workshop and later published online. Photos of the workshops are available under their Photos page, where you’ll see generations of families come together to share food, stories, and even perform cultural dances.
There are currently 6 projects available.
- Immigration Stories: Old and New: Features personal stories of the immigration experience of Pittsburgh residents which were compiled in a series of four workshops held by two project team leaders through January and March 2017. Following the workshops are public discussions with a panel of refugees and long-term residents, which were held in two universities and two libraries (not specified).
- Digital Storytelling: Building Bridges are videos produced by teens living in Northview Heights, both of African American descent & refugees.
- Digital Storytelling: Building Bridges 2 is the second installment except with adults.
- Shaping Communities: Then and Now features videos created by those in the LatinX community located in Pittsburgh's Beechview neighborhood, in which they recount their immigration experience.
- Women’s Way: Stories of Motherhood in the Time of Covid brings together nine different women to speak on their experience as mothers and/or refugees during the 2020 COVID pandemic.
- I Am Ukraine brings together Ukrainian refugees and Ukrainians who reside in Pittsburgh to meet and create their own digital stories about Ukrainian identity.
The project Women’s Way: Stories of Motherhood in Times of Covid is particularly interesting as it highlights the shared experience of motherhood among women from different cultures—an experience often overshadowed by societal expectations surrounding childbearing. These women share the grief of their home, family members, and the life they once knew, now a fragment of the past. By exploring their own relationship to this concept of “motherhood” under lockdown, where uncertain death looms outside their front door, they build bridges that cross cultural boundaries by finding a common ground.
Improvements can be made to the user interface. I think the “about” on the landing page is a bit confusing in terms of what the website is trying to achieve. The videos, supported by Vimeo, are embedded into the website but do not extend into a larger screen unless you manually select ‘open in a new window’, thereby limiting the seamless usability. I found the testimonials written from previous projects and photos of the workshops more informative in understanding the context in which the videos were created. For example, the ‘I Am Ukraine’ project description only states that Ukrainians ‘meet together’ to talk about Ukrainian identity. What is not mentioned are the Ukrainian dance performances, the Ukrainian food offered, the diverse age group of the participants, or what was discussed during the panel. While the videos represent the final product of the project, the emotional impact that unfolded during the process is absent. RatherThe six testimonials inform us about the emotional impact this organization had on different communities and how thankful they are to Sharing Our Story, effectively painting a picture of the profound effect on the Pittsburgh community.
Sharing Our Story is successful in their goals of bringing the diverse communities in Pittsburgh together– not just with food, or cultural performances, but with collective initiative and commitment to listen to individuals on a personal level. While the website hosts these videos, they don’t quite grasp the significance of these workshops or the engagement involved on both sides.
How are the collaborative aspects reflected in the project and are there elements that work particularly well?
The collaborative aspect is evident in the amount of project planning involved. In one testimonial for I Am Ukraine, Rev. John Haluszcsak assisted by recruiting people for the program and connecting Sally to resources in the Ukraine community. Marketing materials, coordination, and even transportation for one of the refugees are examples of outreach not reflected in the videos themselves.
Do you see an opportunity for collaboration that would be helpful to the project?
Collaborations with software developers would improve the user experience and functionality of the site.