Another "Your Life is Your Story" Recommendation

The Legacies Encinitas
Story Arts Youth/Elder
Story Arts Project

Legacies is an inter-generational project in Encinitas, California. The project is now a national model that honors the important role Elders hold in our culture. This is done by celebrating them through Youth-generated story art works. The result is an invaluable community legacy that can be exhibited throughout a local region.

A nonprofit group of artists and custom publishers based in Encinitas (The StoryArts, Inc.) organized, implemented and funded this project. They teamed young people with elders in their community. The youth interviewed the elders and the stories were transribed. The finished collage art book also included family photos and was put together over a series of four workshops.

THEIR MISSION STATEMENT
It is the great task of Elders in any society to pass on the fruits of their accumulated life lessons, embedded within their life stories, to the younger generation. Therefore a mature society always honors its Elders, by establising a way for them to share their wisdom. Without this rite of passage we continue to stumble again and again over ordinary obstacles life presents to us, as well as waste our foreparents' hard-earned knowing without even noticing we are doing so.

Story Art Readings and Exhibits are designed especially to bring Youth and Elders together to pass on the Elders' life stories through story art works. By doing this, not only can we prevent losing our Elders' accumulated wisdom, a social tragedy, we can actually provide a way to preserve and invest our older citizen's rich life experiences in our Youth's budding creativity.

I think this is a great project and it shows how a few motivated people can empower a community to preserve their Elders stories while passing on valuable lessons to young people.

Visit The Legacies Story Arts Project