Shou Osstik? (What’s Your Story?) is a six-month new media pilot training program for women from the north, south, Bekaa, and Beirut regions in Lebanon. You can also read about it in Arabic/بالعربي. The program aims to empower Lebanese women from around the country to amplify their voices, and through social media, to provide new avenues for their stories to be heard. The program was developed by SMEX in collaboration with Hayya Bina.

During the program, participants will meet once every three weeks to learn digital storytelling and basic social media skills. Between workshops, they will be responsible for completing assignments and for practicing their online skills. In addition, participants will be encouraged to apply their skills to raise the profile of issues they care about in their community, teaching, or NGO work. The eight workshops include:

Day 1: Introduction to the Online Environment & Digital Stories
Participants will be introduced to the program, learn basic secure browsing and online communications techniques, and talk about what makes a digital story.

Day 2: Strategic Search & Storyboards
Participants will learn how to get better search results and create their first storyboard.

Day 3: Finding Your Story
After choosing a story to tell, participants will write a first draft of their story script. We’ll also introduce Facebook profiles and social bookmarking.

Day 4: Getting “Creative” with Your Story
We’ll open the door to open culture with a session on Creative Commons. Then, participants will search for music and learn to record a voice-over for their stories.

Day 5: Shooting & Sharing Your Photos
Participants will learn basic photo composition and resizing and then share their pictures on the web.

Day 6: Shooting & Sharing Your Video
Everyone will become a director, learning how to shoot video for the web and share it on YouTube.

Day 7: Packaging & Promoting Your Story, Part I
Participants will finalize their digital stories and begin planning how they will promote them through tools like blogging or Twitter.

Day 8: Packaging & Promoting Your Story, Part II
In the last workshop, participants will screen their stories and receive their certificates!

Schedule

The trainings will be held every three weeks, on Saturdays for participants from Beirut and on Sundays for participants from Bekaa, North and South of Lebanon, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

About the Trainers

The eight workshops will be led by recent graduates of SMEX’s MADskills social media trainer certification program.

About the Funders

This program is funded by the US Embassy in Lebanon, with cost share from SMEX.

For more information about Shou Osstik? please contact Malak Zunji, malak [at] smex [dot] org or +961 70 907 848. Or call the SMEX offices at +961 1 380 553.