Richard Lauf Global Studies Grant allows Students’ Illustrated Memoirs to be Shared Throughout the Region
The below project which is described is funded by the Rich Lauf Global Studies Grant through the World Affairs Council. The grant was awarded to five schools to encourage teachers, students and/or student organizations to develop and carry out a project that benefits your school or community related to the UN Global Goals. You can donate to the grant here.
We were so pleased to be awarded funds from the Richard Lauf Global Studies Grant to support our project Appreciation of Cultural Diversity Through Memoir Story Times. The Lauf funds allowed us to purchase copies of students’ illustrated memoirs to distribute to students, classrooms, teachers, and libraries following story times we held in different locations in our region. The three Aiken New Tech High School students involved in the project, Rojina Rai, Asifiwe Shema, and Divine Rugwiro had each written and illustrated a memoir through Maketank Inc’s Illustrated Memoir Project and had expressed an interest in sharing their memoirs through community story times. Mr. Aaron Parker and Dr. Kate Carlier Currie arranged for story times to take place at schools, libraries, and community centers and camps to reach a diverse audience of young people and educators with this work.
We believe individual stories can change the world. Maketank Inc’s Illustrated Memoir Project engages English language learner students by asking them to share true stories from their lives in words and images, centering their lived experience and unique ways of knowing the world. The goal of this work is to increase intellectual self-trust, literacy, and social emotional learning in the participants. By sharing these stories with the broader public we aim to increase cultural understanding and empathy and awareness for immigrant and refugee experience, fostering a more welcoming global community.
Divine and Rojina shared their illustrated memoirs at Lane Public Library in Oxford, Asifiwe read his memoir to community members young and old at the Salvation Army’s Cincinnati West Side Corps Community Center, all three students read to four different sixth grade classes at Rushmore Elementary in Huber Heights, and Rojina and Asifiwe will share their stories this summer with young people attending summer camp at Washington United Church of Christ in Camp Washington.
Sharing the illustrated memoirs of these three young people from diverse home countries – Rojina is from Nepal, Divine is from Rwanda and Zambia, and Asifiwe was born and raised in Burundi – has had profound effects on the authors as well as their audiences. Reflecting on the experience, Rojina shared,
“By sharing my experiences, it gave me more self-confidence… I was nervous, but I was very pleased to see how young people were very willing to learn about my book and culture.”
Asifiwe also felt he gained confidence from the experience, saying,
“Through sharing my experience, I have gotten to see my personal story and culture from a different perspective and I have also gained a source of confidence in myself….I became more confident in who I am and what I can expect from others as they learn from me.”
In addition to increasing the confidence and self-efficacy of the authors and illustrators who are sharing their memoirs, these storytimes help the broader community learn about different cultures and perspectives and gain a richer understanding of the experience of immigrants and refugees. Asifiwe designed a feedback form to be shared with participants and of those audience members who shared responses 96.5% said that the story time increased their understanding of immigrant and refugee experience and nearly three quarters of respondents (73.7%) said they were inspired by the experience to take action to make a positive difference in the lives of immigrants and refugees. One of the educators in the audience shared,
“I am a teacher and I loved that my students learned 1st hand experience from you about your inspirational story! They learned so much and enjoyed your passion and enthusiasm while you read aloud. I hope that you continue your mission to educate and help others.”
The most common suggestion from respondents was simply a plea that the students write and share more books about their lives.
We are truly grateful for the support from the Richard Lauf Global Studies Grant for this project. We love seeing the impact of these story times on the authors as well as the audience and the additional aspect of being able to leave books behind with the students, classrooms, libraries, and teachers helps extend that impact and allows the stories these young people have to share to reach even more members of our global community. Thank you!
