STORYTELLING · MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING
Myth Village
Using folklore and myth to help displaced people carry what is hard to say — and to find each other again through story.
The idea
Some experiences are too heavy, or too raw, to tell head-on. Myth Village works around that. Drawing on the deep tradition of folklore, myth, and storytelling, it invites people to tell their story in the third person — as a myth, a character, a tale — so they can explore difficult thematic areas at a safe distance, without having to relive it directly.
We call this decoupling: separating the teller from the told, so that which is difficult to say can still be spoken. In doing so, people process experience, rebuild how they see themselves, and reconnect with those around them.
HOW IT UNFOLDS
From a quiet circle to a fire-lit storytelling event.
Phase one
The workshop
An intimate, interactive space where traditional myths and personal storytelling meet — woven together with soundscape, movement and collective listening. Here, the decoupling happens, and stories take shape.
Phase two
The community performance
The stories return to the community in a fire-lit gathering — where elders, youth and neighbours contribute through spoken word, dance, rap and traditional performance. Private experience becomes shared culture
“When the story belongs to a myth, the teller is free — and the whole community can hold it together.”
Creative Action in this project
Like all our work, Myth Village started as simple story telling workshops with a youth group in Kyangwali, before it developed into a more illustrative tool, now it moves through the same method.
Identify
Listening through story
Traditional myths open a safe way for people to name what they carry.
Understand
Decoupling
Telling it in the third person lets people explore painful memory at a distance.
Transform
Shared performance
The community turns private stories into a collective, culturally-owned event.
A programme we’re still growing.
Myth Village is one of our most innovative approaches, and it is still evolving — iterating with different refugee populations at Kyangwlai and adapting to each. Flexible enough to serve peacebuilding, conflict mediation, behaviour change and psychosocial support, it is becoming a living tool for cultural integration and learning — and a programme we intend to build on.
