People’s Voice Media launched the Community Reporting movement in 2007. It’s a method that uses digital tools to support people to tell their own stories in their own ways.

Using the Internet to share these stories with others, we are able to connect them with the people, groups and organisations who are in a position to make positive social change. Central to Community Reporting is the belief that people telling authentic stories about their own lived experience offers a valuable understanding of their lives. Through creating spaces in which people can describe their own realities, Community Reporting provides opportunities in which people can use storytelling to:

• Find their voice – Through storytelling we can have our say on topics pertinent to our lives.

• Challenge perceptions – Through listening to different experiences than our own, our understandings of the world can widen.

• Be catalysts of change – Through taking responsibility to act on what we have learned from other people’s experiences we can be part of positive social change.

Community Reporting has three distinct components – story gathering, story curation and story mobilisation – based around the Cynefin decision-making framework for complex environments (David Snowden, 1999). As part, of the Community Reporting process we equip people with the skills and online tools to continue to tell their story after their training. These stories help to feed our unsolicited curation and mobilisation activities by providing us with insights on the key topics affecting our network. From the stories we create feature articles, write short reports and run local events, exploring topics pertinent to our storytelling movement.