THESSALONIKI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL

It’s our great pleasure to take part in the 11th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, where we will be screening the digital stories created as part of our Imagine your Future project in Greece.

Using the method of digital storytelling, Imagine Your Future gave diverse groups of young migrants living in Greece – among them a group of students from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, a group of economic migrants, as well as a group of juvenile prisoners from Diavata Prison (18-22 year-olds) – the opportunity to tell their personal stories.

The Imagine Your Future digital stories were created by the immigrants following a series of digital storytelling workshops, which focussed on how the participants themselves envisaged their future. The aim of the workshops was to train the different groups how to work on their own material and develop an aspirational message for society.

Almost all of the storytellers are first or second generation migrants in Greece. They represent a broad spectrum of society ranging from university students to young people with few educational opportunities and people who experience social exclusion (as well as a limited number of primary education teachers working with the above groups).

The digital stories last approximately 2–3 minutes each, are based on narration, and have been written, recorded and edited by the immigrants themselves.

Imagine Your Future, which is part of our wider Living Together programme, is running simultaneously in 9 countries in South East Europe.

The Imagine Your Future programme is running in Greece in collaboration with the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the non-governmental organisation ARSIS.