 |
| Voices and Faces Project storytellers in Durban, South Africa. | Photography by Patricia Evans |
|
| “We tell ourselves stories so we know how to live,” Joan Didion famously wrote. With a similar belief in the power of our testimonies, The Voices and Faces Project launched "The Stories We Tell," North America's first two-day testimonial writing program for survivors of gender-based violence. Since its inception in 2011, "The Stories We Tell" has been offered over a dozen times in cities across North America, and over 175 writers have come through our program. In 2013, we debuted a short-form version of "The Stories We Tell," focused on the ethics and challenges of sharing testimony in conflict zones, in South Africa. Last month, we brought "The Stories We Tell" to the Illinois Holocaust Museum.
Why testimonial writing? By using our stories in service to not only personal but also political transformation, we become more effective change agents. During "The Stories We Tell," workshop participants read and discuss world-changing testimonial writing across social justice movements, while taking part in a series of innovative real-time writing exercises. This is a workshop that is as purposeful as it is powerful - a way to use your own voice to create a more just and fair world. |
|
| The stories behind our storytellers: Meet our workshop co-founders, Anne and Clifton. |
 |
| Clifton and Anne |
Anne K. Ream is the founder of The Voices and Faces Project and the author of "Lived Through This," a narrative and photographic memoir of a multi-country, multi-year journey spent listening to the testimonies of gender-based violence survivors. Anne’s writing has appeared in The New Republic, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and numerous other publications.
R. Clifton Spargo is a novelist and cultural critic. The author of "Beautiful Fools: The Last Affair of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald," he writes the HI/LO, on the interplay of high and low culture, for Huffington Post. A graduate of The Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Clifton has taught creative writing at Marquette University, University of Iowa, and Yale University. Listen to Anne and Clifton talk to the CBC (Canadian Public Radio) about "The Stories We Tell." |
|
| Our Fall 2015 “Stories We Tell” Schedule |
 |
Milwaukee, WI
October 17-18, 2015
Mount Mary University |
|
Evanston, IL
October 24-25, 2015
Northwestern University
(non-students welcome) |
|
|
|
Toronto, Canada
November 7-8, 2015
Toronto YWCA |
|
Chicago, IL
December 12-13, 2015
Rape Victim Advocates in partnership with
Cook County Juvenile
Temporary Detention Center
(for court-involved girls ages 15-18) |
|
San Diego, CA
January 16-17, 2016
Center for Community Solutions |
|
| For details and to apply for a workshop, email janet@voicesandfaces.org |
You did this: A big thanks to our 2015 workshop supporters:
Anonymous ·
Comer Family Foundation ·
Crown Family Philanthropies ·
Cook County JTDC Foundation ·
Fogelson Family Foundation ·
Jewish Women’s Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago ·
Lakshmi Foundation ·
The Donner Canadian Foundation ·
Wisconsin Humanities Festival |
| The Voices & Faces Project | Lecture Series |
|
| Be There: Testimony and Tikkun Olam. |
Illinois Holocaust Museum
Sunday, Nov.1, 2015 | 2:00 – 4:00pm
Anne K. Ream, the founder of The Voices and Faces Project and author of Lived Through This: Listening to the Stories of Sexual Violence Survivors, will discuss the role that testimony has played in social justice movements, and introduce the audience to six extraordinary women and men from across the globe who are using their own stories to challenge legal and social responses to gender-based violence. During this innovative lecture/photography program, debuting at the Illinois Holocaust Museum, Ream will consider the ways that testimony can break through ideological barriers, explore the role that social and news media are playing in survivor story sharing and speak to a growing body of research that establishes the links between sharing testimony and healing from trauma.
A response panel will follow the lecture and include Dr. Danny M. Cohen, author and Assistant Professor of Instruction at Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy; Dr. Galya Ruffer, Director of the Center for Forced Migration Studies at The Buffett Institute for Global Studies; and Leslie Thomas, Founder, Art Works for Change. Lecture features the photography of Patricia Evans.
|
 |
| The Voices & Faces Project | On the Road |
|
| One-one-one (with 1600 people): The Voices and Faces Project in Istanbul,Turkey. |
 |
| Anne Ream (far right) in Istanbul, Turkey |
In August, 2015, Soroptimist International - a United Nations NGO working in over 180 countries to improve the lives of women and girls - invited Anne K. Ream to give a keynote address at the Soroptimist International Global Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. Anne’s talk was followed by a panel discussion with Silvana Arbia, Judge of the International Criminal Court; Alice Nkom, 2014 Amnesty International Human Rights Award Recipient; and Rashida Manjoo, Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN. A special thanks to these extraordinary women for the voices, and their courage. |
| We can't do it without you: |
|
| Support our “Stories We Tell” Scholarship Fund. |
Find out more about giving the gift of change by donating to our workshop scholarship fund. Every $500 raised provides a full two-day scholarship for a survivor waiting to take part in our program.
 |
|
voicesandfaces.org 
info@voicesandfaces.org
