SF Stories: A Shared Experience is a unique series of digital storytelling workshops put on in cooperation with local service agencies to increase low-income individuals’ access to and engagement with digital media arts. The project is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation’s Exploring Engagement Fund.

BAVC Media has partnered with three unique local organizations:

• The award-winning Homeless Prenatal Program, which understands the challenges of finding affordable and stable housing and works to support families in transition;
• The Veterans Affairs Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Recovery Program, which helps veterans recovering from mental illness become fully functioning members of the community; and
• The Recovery Survival Network, which connects ex-offenders seeking survival skills to training programs and resource providers.

Through a series of workshops participants are given the opportunity to learn the process and tools of digital storytelling and media production to tell their stories. Their final projects are distributed through a variety of platforms, including public access television, exhibitions in non-traditional spaces, and online video. In sharing their personal experiences, participants also find their own voices, and a voice for their communities.