National Storytelling Week

Celebrating Multicultural Stories

Amanda Epe at Rich Mix

The first of February marks National Storytelling Week, a great tool for building confidence and self-esteem. We are more familiar with storytelling as a vocal art, and then as the written art. Telling is to speak to the public, the receivers of the story being listeners, similarly, readers say of tales and literature "the story is telling us..." so we can agree that storytelling is telling stories through public speaking or writing.

The mission of storytellers are to spin a sequence of events from beginning to end with an underlying message, mission, and solution. We all love to tell narratives of our own, as "everyone has a story in them," alternatively sharing other people's stories and folktales are highly popular for storytellers. We cannot define storytelling in this correct way or that way, each culture has its own version of telling. Great vocal storytelling, however, uses other art forms to make the delivery more interesting and entertaining, such as gesture and movement, and writers "show and don't tell" with their words.



West African storytellers, we know as highly respected Griots in their communities and villages for traveling and sharing stories an oral history using poetry and music. Throughout 2020 in Brent, a borough recognised for having a mix of abundant cultures, we will travel into multiculturalism as stories are being shared.

We kicked off with the incredible and spectacular launch of RISE event on the 18th of January. RISE told stories through poetry, film installations, and dance and closed with a smashing performance from the original Grime artist General Levy. Brent is the home of Rachel Yankey, Riz Ahmed, Zadie Smith, the Grunwick strikers, legendary family businesses, famous Irish pubs, trailblazing young poets, Metroland Brent 2020, London Borough of Culture architects, great roads and the builders of the biggest Hindu Temple in Europe.

We are encouraging the community to write and share their stories in our workshops or through 1-2-1 coaching sessions at Fly Girls Wellness. Working with predominately Brent community for Brent Stories but spreading our wings to work with you too. Get in touch to make this year your year of being a storyteller.