Keywords

The United Nations estimates that all over the world, 147 million children have missed more than half of their in-class instruction over the past 2 years due to school closures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. This means of course a significant loss of future earnings across their lifetimes. In addition, after schools reopened, only 20% of countries implemented measures to foster mental health and provide psychosocial support for students. School absenteeism rose to unprecedented level.

According to the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 [1], more than 4 years of progress has been erased by the pandemic. This, together with rapidly rising inflation and the impact of war in Ukraine, has led to an increasing number of people living in extreme poverty. As a result of forced migration and rising inequalities in income between countries, the number of refugees between 2015 and 2021 increased by 44%. With regard to well-being, the situation is far from comforting. A significant rise in anxiety and depression has been exacerbated by the shortage of healthcare workers both during and after the pandemic; this in turn has derailed progress against other infections such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

In this complex picture, Europe is no exception, with inequality and social exclusion remaining among the main concerns of EU citizens. According to a 2017 Eurobarometer survey [2], income inequality was perceived by a vast majority as one of the main issues faced (84%) and this was even more evident in the post-Covid-19 crisis, with nine in ten Europeans (88%) considering a more socially conscious Europe to be relevant to them personally [3]. The European Pillar of Social Rights builds upon a set of principles that include access to education, training and lifelong learning; gender equality; health and safety; childcare and support to children; housing; the right to access basic services and an Action plan, comprising a set of investments with targets to be accomplished by 2030.Footnote 1 Among these, the three most ambitious are related to work, (78% of the population aged 20–64 should be in employment), training (60% of all adults should be participating in training every year) and a reduction of at least 15 million in the number of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion.

The implementation of the actions needed to achieve these targets is supported in each country by the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) and it is also the object of several international joint research projects funded under different EU Calls and programmes. These projects are intended to cast a light on good and innovative practices, which analyse each specific context to better understand processes and verify the quality of the results. Each project tackles the problem from a different perspective, telling a slightly different story.

Despite massive investments in Europe over the last decade to support social inclusion, gaps between policy and practice still appear across countries. Specifically, the projects funded by the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) use a wide variety of methodological approaches to carry out different activities in the global and local context at the same time. These efforts are undoubtedly valuable; however, connecting the dots to frame a comprehensive picture is not always easy. A common strength identified across different marginalized groups is the importance of giving them a voice and valuing their skills and cultural background.

The idea of “giving voice” to underprivileged individuals assumes implicitly a deficit view that specific groups do not have any voice or that it is lost and not heard amongst the chaos of the current over-abundance of information. However, information itself it not enough; it needs to be transformed into knowledge as the common saying goes. The role of education professionals in this process is to mediate by facilitating a constructive dialogue rooted in an epistemic curiosity about experience and reality.

In this sense, the ultimate goal of education should be to allow people considered to be oppressed to develop a critical awareness of their social reality through reflection and action, in a conscientization process [4]. Disrupting social myths allows individuals to learn through a critical process aimed at revealing actual needs and being able to satisfy them. Thus, commitment and action are the unavoidable premises for a Freirean approach to teaching/learning. This approach is founded upon the view that people are involved as equally valued partners in whatever the enterprise, whether education, health, employment or citizenship to mention a few examples.

Digital storytelling is a creative media practice that draws heavily on Paulo Freire’s philosophy of celebrating all humanity and, above all, his belief that empowerment was crucial in enabling people to become their best and most human selves. His practice of critical pedagogy supported people to change their living conditions by escaping illiteracy and oppression. Building on what people already knew in an appreciative sense, Freire supported ‘the oppressed’ to learn to read and write by using words that were part of their everyday life. His approach was transformative, affording dignity and the opportunity to create a better life.

Decades after Freire’s ground-breaking work in Brazil, digital storytelling was developed in the mid-1990s as a democratic means of enabling ordinary people to tell their own, often extraordinary, stories in a way that enabled them to be shared widely. It is a practice that lives on, honouring and celebrating life in all its diversity and wonder, while at the same time offering opportunities to learn valuable new skills that enable storytellers to create the world and the communities of which they are a part.

According to Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison, ‘Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is created’ [5]. It might also be said that our lives are the pasts we tell ourselves. This is very much in the sense that each narrator ‘imbues the past with significance—both personal and collective—and, in so doing constructs present and projected worlds’ ([6], p. 37). With these thoughts in mind, it is crucial that people who are under-represented in society are given opportunities to remember and articulate those stories—to define who they are and where they have come from. Listening as well as speaking is crucial so that the privileged in society—those with money, education, housing, healthcare, etc. can better understand those who can often be invisible, or at least inaudible. Sharing stories opens the way to lives that are shaped by inclusion and understanding rather than by exclusion and fear.

Rather than simply giving people a voice, the practice of digital storytelling offers people opportunities to find, create and amplify their own voice. Core digital skills acquired during the digital storytelling workshops, coupled with an emphasis on reflection, empower people to share their existential experiences in ways that amplify their voices and their stories. Common experiences and feelings can be acknowledged, and differences can be respectfully honoured.

Listening to the experiences of others may often illuminate one’s own experiences and it is common for strong bonds to be forged in digital storytelling workshops. Recent research conducted at Durham University has found that these bonds often last for many years, leading to deep friendships and the formation of small, supportive communities and a sense of wellbeing that, in many cases, has also lasted for many years. The experience of creating a digital story that is heard, respected and understood, perhaps for the first time, is potentially as transformative as Freire’s work on literacy teaching and learning.

The fact that digital storytelling can be—and is—undertaken by people across the spectra of age, gender, ethnicity, religion, educational attainment and ability is testament to the power of the process. It is a process that, while acknowledging challenges and weaknesses, actually builds on people’s existing strengths, knowledge, resources and social networks. However, with the best will in the world, the reality for many people is that the cost of public transport, or caring responsibilities, or physical or mental ill health, may preclude their opportunity to benefit from community support services—or digital storytelling workshops. Any intervention needs to be tailored to or, preferably, co-designed with, citizens representing a range of abilities and needs. It will be essential to continue to adapt our digital storytelling practices in ways that suit the people with whom we hope to engage, and whose stories are so vital for the growth of healthy, diverse, compassionate communities.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in a world in which educational resources were accessible to everyone? This is the goal so clearly identified by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals [7]. Just because it is not possible at the moment, doesn’t mean it won’t be possible—and fruitful—in the not-too-distant future.

If everyone who reads this book did just one thing to realise this… what would that one thing be?