Written by Sharda Vishwanathan, Scope Group

In November 2017, I had the opportunity to visit Myanmar as part of the consortium and the Southeast Asian Social Innovation Network (SEASIN) working group. SEASIN’s core objective is to effectively support and promote social innovation as a means to achieve sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth, social cohesion and equity in Southeast Asia, through intercultural, curricular and extracurricular activities. This visit was thus a great opportunity for us to see how best our university partners in Myanmar are facilitating this knowledge exchange through the creation of the Social Innovation Support Units and also interact with the different stakeholders in the social innovation space in the region.

One such interaction that comes to my mind was with the team from the Third Story Project. A collaborative project between the Myanmar Storytellers and the Benevolent Youth Association, creates and produces children’s books in Burmese and other Myanmar languages to distribute free of charge to children around Myanmar. The stories are written and illustrated by Myanmar artists for a Myanmar audience and address different themes, ranging from peace and tolerance to diversity, gender, equality, women empowerment, environment and child rights. It was amazing to see the books that touched upon these important but difficult topics using storytelling.

Storytelling is a great way to engage with communities and create social impact. Be it delivering messages of peace and fostering diversity or breaking stereotypes around gender or simply equipping children with skills around STEM, financial literacy and so on, stories are a great way to engage with children. Being a storyteller and a writer myself, I have seen the impact stories can have on children. I have written stories that break gender stereotypes, promote racial diversity and create awareness around menstruation, child abuse and other social challenges. Using powerful characters, colourful illustrations and simple conversations, stories can encourage children to think, analyse and question things around. Also, it enhances creativity and has the potential to make learning more inclusive and experiential. At an age when they are very impressionable, stories do play a powerful role in shaping children’s perspectives about themselves, others or the world we live in.

To find out more about Sharda’s storytelling project, visit Tale Weavers.