Let your loved ones tell their stories

Talking about sorytelling, what else is there besides the story of just a man or woman, the one closest to you? US radiomaker David Isay came up with this idea while recording stories from ordinary people, noticing how important it was for those people to be able to tell their story to others, preferably their loved ones. Listen to Isay about his idea:

Dave Isay opened the first StoryCorps booth in New York’s Grand Central Terminal in 2003 with the intention of creating a quiet place where a person could honor someone who mattered to them by listening to their story. Since then, StoryCorps has evolved into the single largest collection of human voices ever recorded. Isay eventually managed to create a platform with tools for every American to record stories from their loved ones, friends or family, have it archived for society and also have it made available for anyone to listen to.

StoryCorps provides an app for people to make it easy to do so. The free mobile application walks users through an interview by providing all the necessary tools, with help preparing questions, finding the right environment for the conversation, recording a high-quality interview on one's mobile device, sharing the finished product with friends and family, and uploading the conversation to the StoryCorps.me website.

The StoryCorps website is a wonderful place to discover amazing stories from people, sometimes just lovely in their simplicity - like the most important story in many lives, the love story - or sometimes shocking or overwhelming. Some do suprise the listener because their actual value, like this one from a American African young man, once adopted by white parents, who became engaged in a typical US pull over that nearly killed him.

Some stories don't need a movie production, fancy digital techniques or large audiences in huge theater settings. They just need to be told and to be listened to.