{"id":6570,"date":"2021-04-15T11:31:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T11:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cov19chronicles.com\/?p=6570"},"modified":"2023-11-28T12:27:33","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T12:27:33","slug":"sharing-stories-for-children-discovering-the-worlds-languages-in-one-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19chronicles.com\/sharing-stories-for-children-discovering-the-worlds-languages-in-one-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharing Stories for Children \u2013 Discovering the World\u2019s Languages in One City"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tom Cheesman, curator of a fascinating new multilingual story sharing website, offers insights into how children\u2019s tales opened up new worlds for Swansea locals under lockdown.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018More Stories Swansea<\/a>\u2019 is a community art project, designed for pandemic conditions. Seed-funded by Swansea Council, the project aims to bring the city\u2019s diverse local communities together, sharing languages and cultures across the internet and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We invite local people to record stories for children: fables and folk tales from their cultural traditions. They record on the phone and send in the audio files. We post the audio on our website (with a summary written in English and Welsh). Then, we invite local people to create illustrations and animations to go with the stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This game has a few simple rules. The participants must live in Swansea. They can tell a story in any language except English or Welsh, the official languages of Wales. Stories must be no more than 3 minutes long \u2013 the shorter the better. Stories and visual artworks must be suitable for children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, we have posted 26 stories in a dozen different languages, plus half a dozen animated films and various other visual artworks. A mixtape of voices and visuals is on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zinia, a student beautician originally from Bangladesh, said at our first public Zoom meeting: \u201cI was really happy to be involved in this project. It\u2019s pandemic time, it\u2019s really hard to cope. I have a five-year-old. And I really want people to know about my culture, how kids grow up there \u2013 I want to tell the differences. This is the best way to engage kids, they can see their story, see the differences, instead of feeling sad, when they can\u2019t go out, can\u2019t meet their friends. It was so fun!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zinia told her story, \u201cThe Cow Boy and the Tiger\u201d, in Bangla (story #1 on our site<\/a>). Dai Griffiths, a music student, turned it into an animated film. He researched Bangladeshi villages, houses, landscapes and breeds of cow: \u201cIt was really fun learning about the culture. As a westerner, it really opened my eyes to what else there is in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dai did his own voiceover in English. But when artist and educator Lucy Donald animated Shahsavar Rahman\u2019s story \u201cThe Lion and the Mouse\u201d, she used Shahsavar\u2019s voice, speaking Kurdish Sorani (story #19<\/a>). Lucy and Shah met on Zoom to ensure that her animation fits the timing of his narration, and to discuss how her designs could best reflect Kurdish culture and make use of visual humour. \u201cIt\u2019s a story I know really well,\u201d Lucy said, \u201cand it\u2019s magical to hear it in a different language. Even without knowing any Sorani, I could hear the warmth and kindness in Shah\u2019s voice, and that was really inspiring. You can hear the depth of Kurdish history within the spoken word.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Shahsavar, a professional interpreter, said he believed storytelling has great power to change the world: \u201cStories can change how we relate to each other, change prejudices, change the politics of refugees, migration, integration. And they can change children\u2019s minds.\u201d He spoke of hearing stories from his grandparents and how they formed his character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Million Woldemarian (a former flight safety engineer) explained how, when he was 8, his mother told him the story he recorded in Amharic (story #2<\/a>). It\u2019s a story about stories: about telling a story to comfort a grieving child. Million\u2019s childhood friend had lost his mother; then Million\u2019s mother told this story. A widowed father comforts his young son with the story that his mother is up there in heaven, with a hen which lays golden eggs, which she will send to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such stories are much more than items of culture: they are intensely personal, emotional memories. Gwri Pennar, who created an illustration for Million\u2019s story, commented that many of us can identify with it in these pandemic times of bereavement. Gwri researched Ethiopian landscapes, architecture and clothing, and created a powerful visual symbol of hope: the motherly golden egg rising like the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The mythic image of the golden egg is found in many ancient cultures. Stories known in the West as \u2018Aesop\u2019s Fables\u2019 never \u2018belonged\u2019 to Ancient Greece, they have always been told in many world languages. Cultural specifics are at the same time human universals. And each of these stories has an individual voice: an individual who lives here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other stories include startling witchcraft tales from the Congo in French, and from Piedmont in Italian; a story of the wise fool, the Sufi Nasreddin, told in Farsi; popular traditional lyrics from El Salvador and Guinea; micro-fiction from Uruguay; Chinese moral tales about the dignity of labour; a creation myth from Patagonia; and much more. Some visual artwork is by students, some by refugees.<\/p>\n\n\n

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From Joshua L Griffiths\u2019s animation of Geoff Lee\u2019s story in Cantonese, \u201cWaiting by a Stump for More Hares to Come\u201d (<\/em>story #21<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Mansoureh Mahmoodi’s illustration of her story in Farsi, “Nasreddin and his Donkey” (<\/em>story #4<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Swansea People\u2019s Multilingual Storytelling Audio Library<\/a> keeps growing. We are talking to local schoolteachers about getting children recording (themselves or family members), translating, illustrating and animating. When lockdown eases, the project can be the focus of training around storytelling, digital technologies, languages, arts and cultural exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are 200 languages spoken in Swansea schools. There is plenty of scope to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project is owned by Hafan Books<\/a>: \u2019hafan\u2019 is \u2018haven\u2019 in Welsh. Since 2003 we have been publishing poetry, stories, drama and more by migrants and other local people, on behalf of Swansea Asylum Seekers Support<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Cheesman, curator of a fascinating new multilingual story sharing website, offers insights into how children\u2019s tales opened up new worlds for Swansea locals under lockdown. \u2018More Stories Swansea\u2019 is a community art project, designed for pandemic conditions. Seed-funded by Swansea Council, the project aims to bring the city\u2019s diverse local communities together, sharing languages… View Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":1773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nSharing Stories for Children \u2013 Discovering the World\u2019s Languages in One City - COV19 Chronicles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cov19chronicles.com\/sharing-stories-for-children-discovering-the-worlds-languages-in-one-city\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sharing Stories for Children \u2013 Discovering the World\u2019s Languages in One City - COV19 Chronicles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tom Cheesman, curator of a fascinating new multilingual story sharing website, offers insights into how children\u2019s tales opened up new worlds for Swansea locals under lockdown. \u2018More Stories Swansea\u2019 is a community art project, designed for pandemic conditions. 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