Project Name: Write Down Your Stories – Sunnyside Recreation Committee
Project Start/End Dates: November 9th – December 14th, 2010
Initial Project Description: Write Down Your Stories is a program designed by the Sunnyside Recreation Committee for individuals over the age of 50. The goal of this program is to encourage literacy skills along with recording stories that may otherwise be lost. Participants of the program will:
- Listen to a storyteller/published author talk about why they decided to write a book
- Share their stories through storytelling
- Write their stories in journals, with help as required
- Polish the stories for others to read
It is expected that this program will help participants improve their literacy skills, along with allowing participants to see their own stories in print. Printed stories will be housed at the Sunnyside volunteer library.
Project Outcomes: Publicity for the course was sent to all households in the community in late October. The program took place over five weeks, with a total of six sessions offered to ten participants. More than a dozen books were purchased for the library. The library also benefited through the additional of a number of local memoirs.
The first two sessions were conducted by local authors who offered some words of encouragement and inspiration. The remaining four sessions consisted of working through memories, putting the words on paper and then revising and adding detail to the stories.
A number of participants expressed their interest in continuing with this project beyond the end date, and the Sunnyside Recreation Committee plans to continue the program weekly at the local library for anyone who want to do any sort of writing.
Hurricane Igor interfered with the timing for the project, and the planned booklet was not finished within the project’s time frame. The committee hopes to publish a book in the new year.
Featured Events
If you can read, you can tutor. Teachers on Wheels will be holding a tutor-training workshop on Saturday, May 26th. Call Tom Dawe for details at 738-3975.
May 26, 2012–all day
Montreal
Enduring WLES models have been developed and implemented in specific geographic locations, such as Nova Scotia and Manitoba, in defined job sectors, such as the construction industry in British Columbia, and in organizational milieus, such as hospitals, in the UK. Why have some models endured? Why have they not been directly transferrable to other settings? What lessons can be learned? www.centreforliteracy.qc.ca/sites/default/files/SUM_INSTITUTE_2012.pdf
June 27, 2012–all day
