Storytelling for activists

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Date
03/30/2025
Time
12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
Where
Online Workshop
Cost
$75.00
Registration Closed

Stories can connect people across boundaries of distance and experience. Stories can also help activists and activist groups build power, reframe and shift oppressive dominant narratives, and help create space to grow community. Activist storytelling, when created and disseminated with intention and care, infuses our culture with myriad viewpoints and creates a kind of intervention that can help us stride toward accountability, justice, and joy. As communicators, we have the opportunity to uncover media’s intentional or unwitting replications of an oppressive society, and consciously expand its capabilities. 

In this one hour course, Jennifer Johnson Avril will discuss the history of activist-made media, how to apply organizing tactics to storytelling, and how to communicate for movement building.

About Your Instructor

Jennifer Johnson Avril

Jennifer Johnson Avril (she/they) utilizes strategic, targeted narrative change to build organizational power and motivate constituencies to action for both for- and non-profits, social justice organizations, and individuals. Jennifer currently works with Warner Communications, where her clients include sustainability and climate change technology companies as well as a national disaster response nonprofit. In her previous role as Director of Advocacy Communications at NYC’s Housing Works, Jennifer created campaigns that elevated city, state, and federal policy issues such as HIV/AIDS, homelessness, LGBTQ+ rights, harm reduction, and healthcare access. Her writing has appeared in PR News, The Advocate, and The Body. She is the co-author of a chapter on HIV/AIDS and Long COVID narrative justice for the forthcoming anthology Framing New Worlds: Resistance Narratives From 21st-Century Social Movements (New Press). Jennifer holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from the Gallatin School at NYU, and an MA in Media Studies for Social Change from CUNY-Queens College. She is a proud former floor member of ACT UP NY and continues to participate in organizing around public health, particularly around media training. She resides in Brooklyn, NY, with her family.
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