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Home > HCAS > HCAS_PUBS > HCAS_JOURNALS > TQR Home > TQR > Vol. 29 > No. 12 (2024)

 

Abstract

Young mothers can be negatively affected by dominant and degrading cultural narratives; their stories of resistance and activism are often rendered invisible in broader social contexts. Informed by collective narrative practice methodologies, we undertook a counter-storytelling research project to elicit and acknowledge the stories of survival and sustenance of young mothers in social movements responding to sexual and gender-based violence in East Africa. We facilitated storytelling circles, incorporating various story and knowledges collection methods. Our approach involved documenting collective experiences and counter-narratives, exchanging stories between communities, and inviting young mothers to respond to other participants’ stories. The telling and retelling of stories of survival and resistance in the face of hardship appeared to be a healing and reinvigorating process which affirmed young mothers’ desire to create social change for themselves, their children, and their communities. The ethics of interweaving individual and collective voices, language justice, collaborative editing, and telling stories in participants' preferred ways involving songs, dances, and artefacts beyond the written word proved to be significant in the process. Enabling the telling and witnessing of personal and collective stories through means beyond written and spoken words proved valuable in eliciting important topics and ethics for collaborative inquiries with activist young mothers.

Keywords

young mothers, activism, collective narrative practice, storytelling ethics, narrative practice research

Author Bio(s)

Deborah Mrema, Narrative Practitioner-Researcher, Program Director at Saint Lucia Nursing Home and Orphanage, Arusha, Tanzania. Deborah is passionate about engaging with collaborative and innovative evidence-based methodologies when nurturing spaces to respectfully honour stories of resilience, pride, and survival to foster transformations of lives and healing possibilities in young people and communities responding to systemic injustices.

Patricia Nudi Orawo, Founder and Executive Director at Stawisha Dada (STADA Kenya), Kisumu, Kenya. Patricia is an advocacy and policy specialist with over 10 years of experience managing health advocacy projects specifically in the fields of Universal Health Coverage, Sexual Gender Based Violence, Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights, Social Accountability and Mobilization, Gathering and Dissemination of Research Findings on Human Rights Based Approach to Health (Accessibility, Availability, Acceptability and Quality of health services).

Lydia Otieno, a Young Mother, was a Project Officer at Stawisha Dada (STADA Kenya), Kisumu, Kenya, at the time of the research. She is currently working as a Health and Hygiene Coordinator. Lydia is a passionate about advocating for issues affecting women and girls today, particularly issues related to sexual gender-based violence. In her spare time, Lydia enjoys playing football and uses sports in her community awareness-raising initiatives.

Juhi Jha is a Narrative Practitioner, originally from India, but currently living and working in the Seychelles. She works remotely in a learning role as a Program Officer for Learning, Data & Storytelling at Children’s Rights Innovation Fund (CRIF), a global children’s rights grantmaking organization. She is currently leading the development and management of CRIF’s learning community using narrative based research methods and an innovative data and storytelling approach. She brings to her team her experience as a theatre maker, writer, researcher, and artist.

Joseph Kalisa, Ph.D. Student at Aarhus University, Denmark and Narrative Practitioner-Researcher, University of Rwanda, Centre for Mental Health, Kigali, Rwanda. In Rwanda and abroad, Joseph has worked to support individuals and communities experiencing the effects of trauma. His passion is the decolonisation of mental health practices. To this end, he has responded to intergenerational trauma through rich story development and the documentation of skills of survival and resistance, and through collective practices including peer mental health work with individuals and groups with lived experience of mental health difficulties.

Serge Nyirinkwaya, Narrative Practitioner-Researcher, Doctoral Candidate at the Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary. Serge is originally from Rwanda in East Africa and is currently working towards his Ph.D. in Canada. His current practice involves brief or single session therapy and community work with immigrant communities. His research focuses on youth with childhood experiences of intimate partner/gender-based violence.

All authors contributed equally to this paper. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Deborah Mrema at: dmrema@jacobs-alumni.de

Acknowledgements

We thank all the young mothers who courageously shared their stories with us, so that we could be vessels for their stories to contribute to the lives of many other people. To the local and community leaders in the region, thank you for your collaboration and unwavering support in the storytelling research project activities.

Publication Date

12-30-2024

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7810

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