"Multiple Communities, Multiple Stories" Community Conversation & Digital Storytelling Workshop

Community Conversation: 12:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Digital Storytelling Workshop: 2:45 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

The public is welcome to participate in this free event: Registration Form

In the aftermath of the death of Freddie Gray in April 2015, we need conversations that bring together a variety of voices and communities to address the intersections of poverty, race, ethnicity, and gender and help create new stories about Baltimore. This event will highlight stories of identity, belonging, and activism from several Baltimore communities through conversations about the past, present, and future of the city. Participants will explore questions of immigration, change, community relations, and social equity and will discuss how residents’ experiences are shaped in and through their neighborhoods. After the conversation, participants can also learn how to use digital storytelling as a way to record and disseminate their voices.

Community Conversation (12:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.)

Welcome: Jessica Berman, Director of the Dresher Center for the Humanities and UMBC Professor of English

Facilitator: Ana Oskoz, Associate Director of the Dresher Center for the Humanities and UMBC Associate Professor of Modern Languages, Linguistics and Intercultural Communication

Mapping Dialogues Project: Baybrook (Curtis Bay – Brooklyn)

• Rodette Jones, Community Activist and Manager of the Filbert Street Community Garden in Curtis Bay
• Nicole King, UMBC Associate Professor of American Studies and Director of the Orser Center for the Study of Place, Community, and Culture

Highlandtown Cultural Heritage Project

• Maria Nicolaidis, Greektown Resident and Historian
• Michelle Stefano, UMBC Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies and Co-Director of Maryland Traditions, Maryland State Arts Council

Identity, Immigration, and Belonging in the Hispanic/Latino Community

• David Rosario, Baltimore City Mayor’s Hispanic Commission Member
• Ana María Schwartz Caballero, UMBC Associate Professor of Modern Languages, Linguistics Intercultural Communication and Baltimore City Mayor’s Hispanic Commission Member

Equity Across City Communities

• Michael Scott, Chief Equity Officer/Founder, Equity Matters
• A. Adar Ayira, Director of Programs, Associated Black Charities and Trainer/Facilitator, Baltimore Racial Justice Action

Digital Storytelling Workshop (2:45 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.)

Participants in the Community Conversation can sign up for this workshop on the registration form. 

With Bill Shewbridge, UMBC Professor of the Practice in Media and Communication Studies; and Tania Lizarazo, UMBC Assistant Professor of Modern Languages, Linguistics Intercultural Communication

In this workshop we will help you create a short digital story – your Baltimore story – that may be included on the Baltimore Stories website. Create a personal narrative that records your life experience and reflects your own thoughts about Baltimore communities. We will have a limited number of iPads available, or participants can use their own Apple device (iPhone or iPad). We will use Adobe Voice, which is available as a free download through the iTunes store. If you plan to use your own device, please install the app and familiarize yourself with it prior to the workshop.

The Baltimore Stories project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is a collaboration between the University of Maryland, Maryland Humanities Council, the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Enoch Pratt Free Library and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.