Field Experience: A Social Art Project: If Workers Could Sing What Would They Sing About?

Roni Meisels
Writing workshops and knowledge management, Freelancer

This presentation will show how creative writing was used with workers with youth at risk to co-produce knowledge with the m.

I initiated a creative writing program for the workers of the "Otot" association, including 34 institutions for youth-at-risk. The goal was to create a new kind of space for the workers, enabling them to express themselves creatively while echoing their experience. Creative writing was used to enable the workers to access their self-defined knowledge about the youth, and about their job challenges.

Three different workshops were organized with over 30 participants from ten different institutions. Each workshop consisted of ten 2-hour meetings. Each month all of the new texts were gathered and published in a dedicated blog that was sent to all the “Otot” workers.

The reactions were very enthusiastic. To quote, "it tapped into a meaningful part of our work experience". Workers began bringing texts from the blog into their weekly staff meetings and into their personal counseling. One year into the project there were over ten thousand entrances into the blog.

In the conference i will present The central themes that the workers present concerning their job in terms of challenges and skills needed. Additionally, methodological issues such as the use of creative writing to co- produce knowledge and to give voice to more silenced groups of workers will be outlined.