Storytelling & Video-making Together was an initiative to explore using more creative approaches in order to engage a small group of Nepali migrant workers in Malaysia into participating in a storytelling series via video-making workshops. The core objective was to provide a safe space and convivial environment for Nepali migrant workers to share their personal stories and for making videos that portray alternative views of their lives beyond the common narrative seen in the mainstream media and the general public, while also creating an opportunity for the project team and the local NGO organisation North South Initiative — that advocates for migrants’ rights — to explore ways to work closely together as project partners in nurturing greater involvement and solidarity among the migrant communities.

The project successfully engaged a group of approximately 20 Nepali migrant workers to share their stories, largely through the help of North South Initiative. These participants consisted of diverse age groups (between their 20s to 40s), gender and years of working in Malaysia (from a few months to over a decade) and were from different parts of Nepal, as well as currently working in various locations across the Klang Valley.

A series of workshop sessions was strategically designed to gradually build rapport, trust and teamwork among the participants and the project team through three stages of engagement in
creating meaningful videos based on stories from the perspective of an individual in Stage 1; a small group of participants in Stage 2; then finally the collective voice from all participants in Stage 3. These workshops happened bi-weekly every Sunday over the course of eleven months beginning in November 2022, which culminated in a community screening in early October to share the outcomes of the project.

Video 1

One of the storytelling exercises with the participants in stage 1 of the workshop — the “getting to know each other phase” — was to use sound mapping as a fun way for everyone to share their personal lives through selected/identified sounds. 

This video is a collection of specific sounds recorded or performed by each workshop participant based on two questions – “What is your favourite sound?” “What is your most stressful sound?”– which offers a glimpse into their lives in Malaysia in the year 2023. Using the aural instead of the visual element as the subject matter in storytelling provides an alternative approach to conveying personal associations, memories and emotions with a place in a particular moment in time.