Responding to Violence and HIV/AIDS: Digital Stories from Southern Africa - Facilitation Guide

This 60-page facilitation guide accompanies digital stories produced in workshops initiated by Sonke Gender Justice Network, the International Organization for Migration, and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa as part of the Center for Digital Storytelling’s Silence Speaks project in 2007. Women and men from around Southern Africa came together and shared their stories verbally in a carefully facilitated group process; wrote and recorded short scripts; collected still photos and video clips; and participated in hands-on computer tutorials. The result was a series of personal digital narratives that were collected on DVD. This guide is designed to help facilitators use the digital stories to explore links between gender, violence, and HIV, and encourage people to take action in support of human rights and social and economic justice. The guide states that the storytellers have shared glimpses of their lives, to inspire individuals, communities, organisations, and policymakers towards action and change.

According to the producers, the content of many of the stories is very sensitive, touching on issues like abuse and HIV stigma. Facilitators will want to think carefully about which stories to share and about how to guide conversations in a way that avoids "triggering people or shutting them down and instead educates, enlightens, and motivates them." Storytellers talk about surviving violence as girls and adult women; living with HIV; confronting the challenges of homophobia and xenophobia; and growing up in households dominated by abusive fathers but learning to be men who are instead respectful and loving. Authors hope the stories will be shared in a variety of settings, "as tools for opening hearts and minds about how gender and oppression affect everyone."

Included are:

• guidelines for how to prepare for and facilitate effective story screenings;
• story summaries and transcripts;
• general discussion questions that can be applied to all the stories, as well as selected questions tailored to each individual story; and
• information about where to find additional resources on gender, violence, labour migration, and HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa.