On the 15th of May, Embrace’s Nkuli Mbuli and Cat Swartbooi took us on their journey toward an empathy-centered approach to autobiographical storytelling campaigns.
Let’s look at some of the ways they fostered respect and connection with their storytellers to bring their stories into the public space in an authentic way.
Who are Embrace?
Embrace is a social movement that values and celebrates motherhood and mothers, and the critical role they have to play socially, economically and politically in South Africa. The movement believes that every mother and mother-supporter can join, and together, be inspired, mobilised and connected to effect change. They aim to empower mothers, support their motherhood journey, and build a network of mothers who support each other.
About Nkuli and Cat
- Cat Swartbooi is a multimedia practitioner and journalist. Her primary areas of interest is creating online content for social change. She is currently content creator for Embrace, the Movement for Mothers.
- Nonkululeko (Nkuli) Mbuli is the Advocacy and Communications Strategist at Embrace. She is passionate about communication for social change and hails from an health and society advocacy background.
How did Embrace’s invoke an empathic model in their storytelling campaign?
Embrace focused on radical empathy and incorporating its principles into a recent digital communication campaign. They aimed to amplify the voices of mothers with stories, especially regarding issues like obstetric violence—a term referring to the abuse and mistreatment of women accessing reproductive healthcare.
Their campaign involved finding mothers who wanted to share stories of obstetric violence, creating a documentary series, and leveraging digital platforms to bring these stories to the public. They also engaged in advocacy work to recognise obstetric violence as a form of gender-based violence and included it in national policy discussions.
Nkuli and Cat shared with us some of the ways they engaged with mothers, ensuring respectful consent as they gathered their stories, and learning as they went how to approach a complex subject like this with mothers from different backgrounds and with different experiences.
Instead of trying to simply extract stories as use them for their advocacy work, Embrace gave mothers control and agency over their stories and how they became public, invited their discourse and reflection once stories had been captured, and facilitated debriefings and conversations to ensure mothers who had shared difficult stories did not feel abandoned.
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Insights for a more empathic, compassionate practice
What can you take from Cat and Nkuli’s approach to improve your own communication and digital campaign practice? Here are some suggestions:
- Be empathetic in your storytelling: Focus on radical empathy by deeply engaging with the stories without judgment. It builds trust and authenticity, making the stories more compelling and impactful.
- Aim for collaboration: Involve your community in every stage of storytelling, from planning to execution. It leads to more accurate and respectful representation of their experiences, fostering ownership and empowerment.
- Practice ethics: Maintain a non-exploitative and non-extractive approach to storytelling. It protects the dignity and rights of the individuals, ensuring their comfort and willingness to share their stories.
- Aim for impact and outreach: Use stories to drive awareness and dialogue on critical issues. It amplifies the issue, promotes understanding, and drives conversations that can lead to systemic change.
- Be accountable with your distribution: Thoughtfully plan how and where stories are shared to maintain integrity and respect. It ensures the stories are used responsibly and effectively, maintaining the dignity of the subjects and the credibility of the campaign.
- Adapt to challenges: Be flexible and responsive to overcome obstacles. It enhances inclusivity and effectiveness, ensuring the campaign can reach and resonate with diverse audiences.
Sustain the support systems: Provide ongoing support for participants. It ensures the well-being of participants, fostering a supportive and safe environment for sharing sensitive stories. - Think ongoing advocacy and policy impact: Link storytelling to advocacy and policy change. It translates personal narratives into broader social and policy changes, increasing the impact of the campaign
In case you missed it, take a look at Nkuli and Cat’s presentation.
Watch the presentation recording:
Scroll through the slides from their presentation:
>> Visit Embrace’s website for more of how they do their incredible work with mothers.
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