Reframing Stories with Urban Youth
A story by Benedicte Bertelsen - Dreamtown’s Youth Engagement Lead
I am in a focus group interview with one of the groups who participated in a project innovation course at Copenhagen Adult Education Centre (KVUC). For the third time, Dreamtown has facilitated the course in collaboration with our Ugandan partner, Network for Active Citizens (NAC). How do we engage more Danish young people in development collaborations? That question has been a key focus in our work in Dreamtown for a while now. Why? That is what I want to share with you today.
“Typically, you grow up with these fundraising shows and advertisement from NGOs and often you haven’t been taught that much in school [referring to development work broadly] - so it’s become very foreign to you - and you only hear all the bad things. So, this is what forms one’s view of “Africa”. Others don’t see what you [Dreamtown] have shown us […]. I think more people could use that. Because I think sadly that many feel the same way”
Drake from Kampala speaking to the KVUC students about community journalism.
What the student above highlights and has experienced is a very real challenge – namely one of representation, voice, and stories. In Denmark growing up one are often told a very limited set of stories from people living in countries on the continent of Africa – they are often stories of despair and hopelessness. These limited sets of stories have been told and retold to the extent where the African continent becomes one block – one country – one story. A story of need.
As the famous writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said in a TED talk titled ´the danger of the single story´: “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story”.
Community journalists from Kampala show and tell about the engagement in Kyebando. Video by Drake Bbaale.
Experiences like what this Danish student express is why we in Dreamtown want to challenge the single-story narrative together with our partners. Because we know it to be incomplete. We need more stories to be told from various and diverse young voices that can help nuance our perception of the world and the people in it. We want to create and engage young people in Denmark in stories that expand, nuance and shift mindsets – that makes one want to dig deeper and relate wider. Stories of action, curiosity, hope, determination, passion, community, creativity – but most of all stories of young people who are motivated by the challenges they face but guided by the dreams they have. When asked what surprised them the most by having participated in the course Dreamtown facilitated in collaboration with Network for Active Citizens at KVUC, one student and volunteer said:
“It is a collaboration with these people [from Kampala’s ghettos], who after all are approximately the same age as us – they are also young people – completely like us – they also go to school and they are approximately in the same place in life as us, but they have some different conditions. They are innovative, have thoughts and ideas and are aware of their rights - they can do so much, so it’s just SO cool to collaborate with them and talk with them directly, rather than hearing their story told through some Whitewashed advertisement”
“I was able to improve on my thinking and creative skills, learned how to put thoughts into actions that can aid in bringing applicable solutions to local problems faced by people in different communities, I was also got to know young people in different countries face similar problems like young people in Uganda. It was really an eye opening awesome and great experience - looking forward to meeting in real life. Thanks to the students, KVUC and Dreamtown”
During the course, the students worked in project groups together with young people from Kampala’s ghettos to create an innovative project idea to address one of three challenges posed by the young people from Kampala’s ghettos themselves. The students from KVUC and the young people in Kampala are connected in WhatsApp groups, where they can directly communicate and collaborate about creating a project idea (read more about the course here). “The ideas generated in my group showed that all youths everywhere have the same approaches, when it comes to solving such challenges. If those ideas are given chance to thrive, the community challenges can easily be dealt with”, said Drake from Kyebando ghetto community in Kampala. And Student C from the KVUC Global Goals High School Track adds: “Without the role models in the WhatsApp groups, we could never have created this idea together - they are just SO cool!”.
The winning project idea from the KVUC course will be taken on by Dreamtown’s Ugandan partner, Network for Active Citizens (NAC) and implemented when the young people from Uganda and Denmark meet in person in Kampala during spring in 2023. Read more about the meeting between the young people in the previous round of the course in Spring 2022 here.
A course like this invites the students to confront their own assumptions and stereotypes. Creating a safe space where one can explore own perceptions and not be judged but can learn from refection is important. Because being introduced to these stories can bring up feelings of joy, excitement, hope and curiosity for the students, the knowledge they gain can also bring up feelings of e.g. shame, frustration, injustice and guilt. Here, two students discuss dealing with shame in the process of becoming aware of own assumptions during the course:
Student A: “You also feel a little ashamed when you find out: "Okay, so we don't have to come and save you [referring to people in Uganda]". When I think back, I am a little ashamed that I have had such a fixed perspective of what the needs are”.
Student D: “I don't think we should be too ashamed of it. Because it is not our fault that we grew up with this White Savior perspective. I actually think that we should be a little more positive and be proud that we have come so far that we can now look back and acknowledge "okay, this was wrong".
Creating a safe space to discuss such feelings with each other is crucial and important for ensuring the students do not blame themselves but are aware of the challenges and have a constructive way to act on and deal with these emotions.
Creating such a course has made our curiosity in Dreamtown rise to dig deep and learn more about pedagogical and didactical approaches. Scholars like Venessa Andreotti and Douglas Bourn take their educational research into action, aiming to build bridges moving in the continuum between theory and practice. These bridges have inspired Dreamtown to deepen our knowledge and understanding of pedagogy and how pedagogical approaches can inform and inspire our endeavours and practices in creating meaningful education on sustainable development. Education unpacking stories of development, inequality and progress focusing on creating deeper learning and reflection in dialogue with others. Education where we “dig deeper and relate wider” (Andreotti et. al., 2019). You can read more about our approach here.
This is, and will be, an ongoing and never-ending process where we as an organisation constantly strive towards getting better and cherishing our respect for the lives of others, their stories, and realities in creating education about social change and sustainable urban development.