Who We Are
Story Studio is an award-winning charity that inspires, educates and empowers youth to be great storytellers, transforming lives and strengthening communities.
Inspire
Our programming unleashes and cultivates the creativity that lies within every child, using professional techniques and mentors to help nurture developing storytellers. We celebrate and encourage young writers by crafting beautiful publications from their words.
Educate
Our programs cultivate narrative capacity in youth, by improving their ability to take in and understand stories, and their ability to tell them. Storytelling is an essential tool in forging connections among people, and between people and ideas – skills are critical for youth to survive, thrive and lead.
Educate
Our programs cultivate narrative capacity in youth, by improving their ability to take in and understand stories, and their ability to tell them. Storytelling is an essential tool in forging connections among people, and between people and ideas – skills that are critical for youth to survive, thrive and lead.
Empower
Our programs build confidence in youth, by giving them the skills and opportunities to tell their own story. In doing so, we build their resilience, improve their mental health and help them connect with communities near and far.
What we do
We develop innovative, ‘fun-first’ workshops that give youth the narrative tools to create amazing stories, using a methodology we’ve developed with almost 10,000 youth.
We bring together emerging kid writers with adult authors and illustrators, so they can learn from each other.
We operate both within the school system and outside of it to reach the kids who really need our help. We leverage partnerships with other non-profits and agencies so that we can benefit and support the entire community.
We target 80% of our programming towards serving ‘vulnerable youth’ – students who may be at risk in terms of their academic achievement and social functioning. Whenever possible, we offer workshops at no cost to these youth and families through partnerships with other community organisations.
DID YOU KNOW?
Only 14% of students living in low socio-economic households scored in the top quarter of reading performance within Canada.
Our Impact
Founded in 2011, Story Studio began as a small seed: a hope to bring literacy and creativity into children’s lives by giving them the tools to tell their own stories, in their own words.
To date, we have worked with over almost 10,000 youth
Each year, we collaborate with 20-30 teachers and classes to deliver our workshops
Each year, we produce around 1500 youth-authored books, creating two copies for each young writer – one for them, one for their school library
We partner with community organisations like the Victoria Literacy Connection (to support their Noisy Kids afterschool reading program) and the Child Care Resource and Referral (to support out-of-school care programs)
FAQs
Each year, we hold workshops with hundreds of youth from the communities around southern Vancouver Island. We partner with schools and non-profits to deliver our programs in a variety of settings, from classrooms to museums. We also make online resources available to youth and educators around the world.
We strive to keep our programs as accessible as possible. With the generous support of our donors and sponsors, we offer most of our programs for free or at greatly subsidized rates.
The Story Studio Writing Society began in 2011 with the hope of bringing creativity and confidence into children’s lives by giving them the tools to tell stories of their own, in their own words and with their own illustrations. The aim was to remove boundaries and allow children to lead their stories wherever they wanted. And we have done just that for almost 10,000 youth.
Volunteers help keep us running. These qualified and generous individuals help us mentor youth in the classroom, edit online stories and serve on our board of directors.
Our head office is located at 2001A Douglas Street, where we share space generously provided by Victoria Child Care Resource & Referral. Our programming is delivered in schools throughout School Districts 61, 62 and 63, and at sites hosted by our other community partners.
If you have a specific question, please email us at info@storystudio.ca
