Story Ambassadors Program

Being exposed to storytelling spaces and seeing folks from different backgrounds come together to learn the art of storytelling with me as a facilitator…I can’t think of many more peak experiences in my life than that. I’m really excited to see what the future holds. The Story Ambassador program was a crucial catalyst and spark that I needed and that I will forever use moving forward.

This program has really grounded me in community. To be with people that see the power and the beauty and the importance of storytelling as a way for us to be connected, to increase our empathy and our understanding of others, and to lead with compassion is really validating and encouraging. I gained tools around the structure of facilitating storytelling spaces with intentionality and care.

Being a Story Ambassador has really shifted how I view myself as a creative person. I came into this really unsure and unconfident about my ideas. Having this amazingly supportive group of people who are also wanting to move towards the same goals of bringing storytelling to the community helped me gain a lot of confidence about myself as a storyteller and as someone who has ideas that can come to life. It was great to have this thing to look forward to every month. For me, it was a form of self-care to be able to have some dedicated time to spend talking about topics that were really important to me with a group of people who felt the same way about those topics. I gained amazing friendships, partnerships, mentorships… And, I know that these are connections and people that I will keep with me for a very long time.

Being a Story Ambassador has ripped down walls that I was aware of and walls that I was not aware of. It has let me come through. And I want to pay it forward. I want to bring storytelling into the community for social change, social justice, self-love, and healing. It has impacted me in so many ways. It has been the cherry on top of my life, and I am so grateful.

Being a Story Ambassador has opened up my mind and my community. I learned how our stories shape the trajectory of our lives and impact what we think is possible. I gained an incredible amount of confidence in this program. I am light-years away from where I was when I started just 6 months ago. And, with that confidence, I am now better equipped to be able to create safe spaces for other folks to use their voices and share their stories.

As Story Ambassadors, we learned the skills of how to create connections among people. Deep, personal connections that get to the very root of what it is like to be a human. We learned how to create spaces where people can talk about very challenging issues like social injustice and trauma. How to make spaces where people feel safe to talk about these things. Storytelling is a great tool for us to be able to revisit places or moments in our lives, explore them, and try to gain as much as we can out of them and relate to one another so that we can create spaces where healing can happen, and change can happen.

Storytelling in my life has been a journey. I have always known that I want to do it; I have always wanted to do it. But, I didn’t have the structures to be able to tell my story from a perspective that didn’t intellectualize it, try to explain it, or overly romanticize it. Part of being in this program is learning that there are other ways that you can story-tell.

The other part is gaining that community in the cohort. Knowing that there are people who are out there who are struggling the same as you. Finding jobs around this work is not easy. You have to create your own brand, your own craft, your own style in order to make it. I feel like I got to see all of those parts though this program.

Being a Story Ambassador really impacted me in a lot of different ways. First off – it helped me become a better storyteller. I am used to hosting events and curating events (in Wyoming)… What I was looking for was tools to help the storytellers at my events and be a good storytelling mentor, and I was able to get a lot of great advice – not only from the staff at Capital Storytelling, but from the other Ambassadors and the mentors that we were set up with. It has really improved the storytelling events that we hold around Wyoming.

I really enjoyed my time in the Story Ambassador Program…I realize that everyone has as a story to share because everyone has lived experiences that they have gone through. I think that the Story Ambassador Program created a space where people have the opportunity to reflect, process, and, if they want to, share their lived experiences. I think that sometimes, just having the space is all that’s needed.

The thing that I gained most was being able to figure out how to meet people where they are at.., how to create a person-centered learning space by reading the energy and pacing of the room…This has given me another avenue to expand on my facilitation skills.

Even though we were all in different cities, I appreciated that it was still a safe space…When it came to the cohort, it was a small group of people where we were leading and listening with our hearts, not with our egos. My experience was grand. I definitely would recommend it.

We met in our cohorts, we did all the trainings, and then we could actually practice what we learned. It really is a complete program – where you learn how to do something, you present it, you have an audience, and you have a debrief afterwards. It helped me get out of my shell – to do something completely different. It was an awesome experience.The group in and of itself is very welcoming and kind. I feel like I have a place here.

Being a Story Ambassador was a wonderful experience. I learned several ways to teach storytelling, which has helped me as an educator and as a storyteller myself. The best part of the program, however, was the community we built. It was so great to learn more about my fellow ambassadors and to watch [us] grow.