Teaching Seniors to Tell Stories
In July 2003, Storytelling Arts of Indiana initiated a collaboration with OASIS to train OASIS members in recalling, developing and telling family stories as well as forming an OASIS Storytelling Guild. The ten-week workshop was offered three times a year for two years to develop a self-sustaining storytelling guild.
OASIS (Older Adult Service and Information System) was the natural organization to approach because they already had the audience that we wanted to reach for this project. OASIS is a national nonprofit organization designed to enrich the lives of individuals over the age of 55. In Indianapolis, OASIS has a membership of over 24,000 with an average age of 73; 91.5% are Caucasian; 5.8% are African-American; 63.9% are married.
This storytelling project has met with success for both the seniors and the two professional storytellers who have led the workshops and the guild. Both professional storytellers believe that their lives have been enriched by the stories shared by the seniors and they wish the workshops would go on forever. Many of the seniors continued to attend the ten-week workshop over and over again.
Project Description
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