REMINDER – Witnessing: Working with Testimonies for Refugee Advocacy Workshop.

Witnessing: Working with Testimonies for Refugee Advocacy is a workshop on refugee and forced migration narratives geared towards professionals and academics who work with refugees and other displaced people. The workshop, which will be held in New York City from January 6 – 10, 2016, is sponsored by PROOF: Media for Social Justice, and is co-facilitated by Dr. Anita Fabos, Associate Professor of International Development and Social Change, Clark University, and Leora Kahn, Executive Director of PROOF: Media for Social Justice. Inquiries welcome; full applications are due November 15. Two full-tuition scholarships for U.S.-based refugees are available. For more information and to apply, please visit http://proof.org/witnessing/

Workshop Description:

Testimonies have different purposes. They can be used for refugee status determination (RSD), in journalistic accounts, for testimony in an international court, for policy research and academic articles, to teach, or to preserve history. Testimonies have also helped stimulate and shape social change, and can be an effective tool for policy change and social transformation.

This four-and-a-half-day, hands-on workshop will hone participants’ skills in the methods and ethics of testimony-taking with forced migrants and refugees, and will examine uses of refugee testimonies for advocacy. Participants will explore the politics of testimony-taking, will construct narratives through different techniques, and will practice techniques of visual story-telling for advocacy and more.

The workshop will bring together refugee service professionals, community leaders, field practitioners in local and international agencies, representatives of government entities and academics in a collaborative environment. The workshop includes presentations by activists, photographers, and practitioners–largely from refugee backgrounds themselves–field visits, and more.