In a sunny week in Pretoria 15 people from different organizations came togetherfrom all corners of South Africa for a training on digital storytelling. This took part within the ´Joint Strategic Framework´ of belgian actors in South Africa.

To learn together and to strengthen cooperation between organisations. In the learning trajectory participants learn to identify and develop inspiring stories of change in their programs. To support monitoring and evaluation processes in their own organization and to know more about good practices in each other's program.

My story is about my work as a volunteer at the South African Red Cross Society. I offer restoring family links services which include telephone services and tracing requests for people that may have lost contact with their family members or relatives.
My story is about the professional learning communities of teachers Implemented in six schools in Bloemfontijn. Which one of them was a special school.
My story is about the life as a labor broker in South Africa. And Trade Unions are now being set up and labor brokers are startingto organize themselves
My story is about orphans and vulnerable children in the Limpopo Province. We aim to assist and curve health and social issues around the communities.
My story is about cardiovascular disease,  health promotion and awareness. My story is about how to attain a cleaner and healthy environment. And this is an action by all relevant stakeholders, municipalities, industry and government.
My story is about the national disaster that happened in Western Cape in 1969. We just celebrated the anniversary of the natural disaster in september of this year. It left people homeless, houses were destroyed and family lives were ruined.
My story is about waste and environmental management in the municipality. An initiative that the municipality has introduced.
My story is about action research. A methodology that is reflective and data-driven to improve professional practices. So I'll be taking you an exciting journey of 15 provincial officials that took part in the action research. 
My story is about smoke detectors. We are putting these in the informal settlements with volunteers, to save lives.
My story is about gender responsive pedagogy for any childhood education.
My story is about the water crisis we experience in the Bergrivier municipal area. And the possibility of facing a ´day zero´- reality.
My story is about my journey to become a PhD candidate in medical microbiology.

During the workshop, the participants acquired skills on media literacy. They brainstormed on their topics. They wrote the text and gave feedback to their peers in  ´story circles´.
They looked for appropriate images and music. They recorded the ´voice over´. They edited their video with open source software. After the workshop the participants will reflect on how they can further apply their gained skills in their organization.

And the organisations will look for opportunities for further collaboration and learning. So, how will I apply the skills I gained in my job ?

There are a number of things. One is the fact that, in all the things that we do, special projects are related to community development. Be able to tell the story using digital tools.

And the skills that we have acquired. So our information communication ability is enhanced. Because now we know how we capture a story, document it and tell it.  In a better format.

I will transfer the skills that I learned today, especially to the organisation where we need to tell the stories of change In the different contexts that we work.
We work with volunteers. And they work with some colleagues. What we learned here is quite important that we need to share.

Like how to digitize our stories and teach our volunteers and and even our staff.

So that outside that,  we need to capacitate the colleagues and people we work with.

I most definitely learned a lot about the other practitioners and other organization that have joined us in this course. Coming from local government it was very interesting to see how the private sector works and I definitely took into consideration that I could learn things from them and they can learn things from us.