THE ART of storytelling in the digital age will reignite the life journeys of Zion Lutheran Home residents by empowering them to share their life experiences and achievements online.

Zion Lutheran Home Lifestyle Coordinator Neal Price recently received a $5,000 grant from the Australia Council for the Arts, Community Partnerships to create a digital storytelling project.

His brief was to develop a partnership between Zion Lutheran Home and Brisbane-based Feral Arts bringing more than 20 residents and their relatives together in a workshop to teach them how to use a multimedia storytelling platform.

The Feral Arts facilitators will bring the residents’ memories to life in a digital storytelling presentation in January.

Attendees will learn how to share their stories across rural Queensland, further afield to Australian Communities or other countries by publishing text, photographs, audio and video to the interactive website. 

The Feral Arts Storytelling in the Public Interest program will become a valuable community resource to share Zion Lutheran Home’s aspirations, culture and residents’ life stories as well as the history of the Nundah area.

Zion Lutheran Home General Manager Maria Mulheran said the benefit of digital stories is that they capture an iconic image of a resident’s life.

“The digital stories celebrate the person’s milestones, achievements, successes and remind us that each person has a story to be told,” she said.

“It is also a wonderful way for residents to share their stories and to connect with others.”

Mr Price said the idea of online storytelling published from home has come into the spotlight as the new social medium and a communication tool.

“It is easily accessible and using film and video is now more user-friendly,” he said.

“With the emergence of new technologies, digital storytelling is a way people can document both personal and local histories and make them available to a wider public.

“There’s increasing interest in creative ageing and using technology in the aged care sector.”

Mr Price said residents could tell stories about important life events.

“They can impart experiences encountered during World War II, stories of immigration, of survival and from that we will understand Zion community is a rich culture of people and events,” he said.

“This gives us a better understanding of who our community is made up of, their strengths and aspirations.

 “If you can use email you can make a digital story.”

Mr Price said there were privacy settings in the software to enable storytellers to control who can access their stories.

The technology will enable resident and sailor Don Thompson, who claimed fourth place at the Brisbane to Gladstone boat race in 1982, communicate with the world around him.

“We like people to appreciate the stories behind our lives,” Don said.

“It means a lot to us.”

Mr Price said resident Mary Black, 101, also remembers when World War I was announced.

“All that history resides within these walls just waiting to be told,” he said.

In 2003, Mr Price was honoured with the Australia Council’s Roz Bower Award for his contribution to the disability, health and community sectors.

After completing a fellowship in London in 2008 focusing on reminiscent and oral history work he looked for an aged care facility willing to enable him to carry out his work and found Zion.

The residents’ stories from the January workshop will be available to view on Feral Arts Placestories website at http://ps3beta.com/project/8139