A group of students ages 14-18 in Cyprus, Finland and France, participating in Your Story, set out to tell the story of an older member of their community. In the week beginning 11 February – 15 February 2020 three separate screening events will take place in Larnaka, Cyprus, Hyvinkää, Finland and Mulhouse, France which will feature the short documentaries created by young participants based on the interviews and archive material that tell the personal story of a person in each of these communities. 

Your Story is an international project that is funded by the U.S. State Department, World Learning and Alumni TIES and is supported by Media What, a Cypriot non-profit organization focused on promoting media literacy to youth through participatory media production activities, and in Cyprus it is co-organized with the Youth Board of Cyprus and Youth Makerspace.

Through Your Story project’s workshops, students learned how to deconstruct media and learned to think like young journalists. In working to create a short documentary, students developed the skills to plan a media project, to consider how to collect data and develop a story based on their interviews. 

The documentary screening made clear that Your Story facilitated inter-generational conversation that informed young people’s identity, especially since the majority of young participants chose to create stories about their own families, instead of choosing a member of their communities. Especially given that a lot of the stories focused on migration and war, facilitating these kinds of difficult conversations that helped young students understand their own selves better, was a key impact.

You can watch some of the short documentaries here.