Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling emerged as a grassroots movement in the early 1990s.  It uses new digital tools to help diverse people create personal narratives that are powerfully compelling and emotionally engaging.

It is a community-based, learner-centered approach that combines first person narrative with digital images and music.  Digital stories provide alternative views and perspectives that demystify stereotyped representations about indigenous peoples. 

The 3-5 minute personal narratives are being created by numerous individuals including family members, health specialists, educators, artists, traditional healers, and tribal leaders.Digital stories can be created by youth, adults and elders from our reservations, villages, pueblos, and urban centers.

Digital stories can be used:

• to improve the provision and quality of health care;

• to increase health communication and health literacy among rural and underserved individuals and communities;

• to increase minority student recruitment and retention in health professional schools and tribal colleges and universities;

• to educate local communities and tribal leaders about critical social, environmental and policy issues;

• to train health service providers, policymakers, and educators;

• and, to restore and reclaim our unique and varied cultures, languages and histories.

Through the first-hand creation of a personal digital story, workshop participants are given the opportunity to reflect, share, heal, and commit oneself to new actions and behaviors that will create social change and justice for the betterment of Our People.

We are a generation that is being bombarded by stories found in print, radio, newspaper, video, movies and the Internet.  The stories are about us but mostly written, created and produced by authorities outside of our communities.  New media technology provides us a path to easily share our stories and build support around our critical and time-sensitive issues.

Four-Directions Framework

Our digital storytelling process is framed within a Diné philosophy of learning that is within accordance to our traditional living system called Sa’ah Naghaí Bik’e Hozhóón.

Our indigenous framework is grounded in the four directions and follows the path of the sun from East to West or follows a clockwise fashion.