WORKSHOPS
We are currently offering the following workshops:
AT THE HEART OF THE MATTER :
Meeting in the Story Circle (3 - 5 days)
This workshop offers participants a rich opportunity to: listen deeply to themselves and to their fellow storytellers; and create a 2-5 minute first person story with digital editing software that adds animated images and music to a recorded narration. While the process does make use of digital software, it is more closely linked to the oral storytelling tradition and to socially engaged art than to digital communication....
ONLINE DIGITAL STORYTELLING
These workshops are for anyone and everyone who believes that we all have stories that are waiting to be told and that the stories we tell from our own lives matter.
Small groups of 6 participants meet online in a story circle for six weekly 2-hour sessions to explore and craft a significant first person story. Using cloud-based WeVideo editing software, participants learn to integrate voice, images and sounds into a 2-5 minute first person digital story.
AT THE HEART OF THE MATTER:
Stories from our Pandemic World
Among all the challenges we have faced during these unprecedented times, many of us have experienced a profound sense of being disconnected from what we most value.
As we negotiate the transition from pandemic times to living-with-Covid, we look forward to renewing and strengthening our connections – with ourselves, with each other, and with the larger world. Perhaps the most effective resource we humans have to foster connection is stories - our own stories.
HELPING CHILDREN THROUGH GRIEF AND LOSS (2 days)
When children and youth experience grief and loss, parents/caregivers can feel helpless. “I don’t know what to say or do” is a common response. In this workshop participants learn about the ways that children at different stages of development understand and express grief and about how to adjust their support accordingly.
DEEP ROOTS, STRONG WINGS:
Raising Resilient Children (2 days)
How can we best support children and youth as they navigate the challenges of growing up in today’s complex and troubling world? In this workshop participants examine two aspects of resilience: Deep Roots and Strong Wings. With deep roots, children know that they belong and are valued for who they are. With strong wings, children know that they have the skills they need to successfully navigate their world.
CIRCLES OF CARE
Supporting Substance-Involved Mothers (2 days)
Women’s experience of addiction often involves intense feelings of shame and guilt about how their use of substances has affected their children. These feelings can prevent women from seeking support during pregnancy and when they are struggling with parenting challenges. In this workshop, participants explore ways of working with substance-involved mothers that help them set aside some of their shame and guilt and reclaim their mothering identities.
TREE OF LIFE
The Tree of Life is a rich and meaningful story and art-based group activity that uses a tree as a metaphor for life. Each part of the tree - the roots, the ground, the trunk, the branches - represents a different aspect of our lives. This activity helps connect us to our past, present, and future and to what sustains us in life.
S.B. Miller
INTERGENERATIONAL CREATIVITY GATHERINGS:
Celebrating the Creative Spirit (1-7 days)
Community Works began incorporating creativity-based initiatives into our development work over a decade ago. Since that time, we have witnessed on many occasions art’s capacity to support collective healing and well-being and engage communities in the process of exploring critical social concerns. Community Works is particularly supportive of intergenerational creativity gatherings. We believe that the health of our communities and the world in general depends on our ability to bridge the distance that separates the young and the old in today’s world. Collective art-making forms a good steady bridge for us all to cross.
"We are story. All of us. What comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story we can while we’re here; you, me, us, together. When we can do that and we take the time to share those stories with each other, we get bigger inside, we see each other, we recognize our kinship – we change the world, one story at a time…”