Ibali team concludes final storytelling workshop in Cape Town

In October, the Ibali team conducted its final storytelling workshop in Cape Town. A group of teachers from the Western Cape region attended the workshop to share their experiences and perspectives on inclusive education. With support from Ibali facilitators, the teachers created fictional stories that convey important messages about inclusive and exclusionary practices.

The workshops with the teachers showcase a collective storytelling process developed and adapted for their specific context through our collaboration with Ibali's storytelling lead, Dr. Joanna Wheeler, at Transformative Story.

Participants were encouraged to express their real-life experiences and insights into inclusion and exclusion during the workshop. They then formed small groups that focused on the ideas they found most interesting. The groups collaborated to develop a fictional story which encapsulated the group members' experiences and conveyed vital messages about inclusion and exclusion related to that idea.

The teachers chose to develop four stories. These stories focused on the following topics: intergenerational poverty in townships and the power of music to capture children's imaginations; small acts of ‘noticing’ and kindness from teachers that can positively change a child's experience of school; anti-gay bullying and the difficult choices that teachers and parents face in balancing encouraging children to be themselves and denying their identities as a means of protecting them; and teachers' own experiences of feeling unsupported and excluded in their development and learning. Listen to some of the stories on the Ibali website.

The Ibali team has also been granted a no-cost extension, which allows Dr Alison Buckler, Dr Jennifer Agbaire, and the external team members to continue working on impact and engagement until August 2024.