The road to social change involves inspiring others to action. And the success of these efforts – whether it be campaigning, fundraising, grant writing or community building – comes down to storytelling. Learn the art of story craft and the skills you’ll need to share your impact story with the world using smartphones and affordable technology. 

FIND Your Story

Deep-dive into story craft and how to unveil a compelling narrative. The ritual of story itself is an integral part of the process of creating impact, we like to think about storytelling as being data-informed, rather than data-driven.

Then, at the SRC we'll help you make that project come to life! This workshop will happen in three parts: 1) Pre-SRC workshop with Monique, 2) Project development at SRC in Albania, 3) Project Refining post-SRC. You can choose how far you want to go! 

What you’ll learn:

Insight into the neuroscience behind storytelling.

• How to use our Story Canvas tool to brainstorm story ideas and develop an effective storytelling strategy. The Story Canvas will help you articulate your purpose, understanding your audience, identify and refine key messages and craft this into a compelling and engaging narrative.
• Narrative frameworks are effective for engaging audiences to take action on social and environmental change.
• Looking at the best of the best: we’ll look at inspirational case studies of incredible impact stories. 

MAKE Your Story

Discover how to bring your impact story to life through video, using smartphones and affordable technology. We'll be getting hands-on, practicing interviews, recording audio and gathering ‘cutaway’ footage.

What You'll Learn:

• How to tell a compelling story - any kind!
•  How to use accessible technology to film interviews and cutaways.
• How to capture pro-quality audio.
• How to prepare for and plan a shoot. 

What you will need:

Any video or recording devices that you would like to use for digital storytelling projects in the future. This could be your smartphone, tablet, camera, audio recording device, microphones etc. If you don't have any that fine, we'll have material at the camp that you can borrow to capture stories!

Anyone joining the Students for Rivers Camp can take part (free) or with 30 € entrance for external attendance!

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Monique Upton is a filmmaker, story researcher and documentary editor who specialises in using story to engage communities and encourage action. She divides her time between shooting in remote Australia with Indigenous communities, editing documentaries, and empowering change makers, environmentalists and scientists to create their own stories through capacity building workshops across Australia and Africa.

In 2019, Monque journeyed up Australia’s most vital river system, the Darling River, with a panel of lawyers from the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA), filming the testimonies of people living along the banks who had witnessed ecological devastation from cotton and industrial scale agriculture practises. Monique is currently editing a documentary to campaign against the proposed mining and damming of Australia’s second-largest river, the Clarence.