A new space for inspirational get-togethers to explore impressions about social groups, trends and traditions across generations and nationalities, and to learn how our perceptions and our attitudes towards others are shaped by overly simplified and inaccurate opinions about social groups, gender, culture and traditions of countries, is being launched in Malta.
On Saturday, 30 July at 10.30am Malta's first cross-cultural Story Café will be launched at the premises of Ta' Detta restaurant at Valletta Waterfront. This will be the first of an ongoing series of Story Café events which will be followed by a Creative Edutainment Lab held on Wednesday, 24 August at Ronald McDonald House of Charities Learning Centre Qawra at 5pm.
The two are social initiatives forming part of the Active Citizen Fund project entitled, Moving beyond the single story: Combatting social exclusion through media literacy, critical thinking and healthy debate, jointly organised by NWAMI International Malta and African Media Malta. The project operates under the acronym SMITE. The acronym was chosen because of its phonetic resemblance of the Maltese verb smajt (I heard). It encompasses everything that this project is all about namely the "single" stories we hear and read that influence our attitude towards each other.
The project's Story Café initiatives are casual social get-togethers providing an opportunity for locals, expats and migrants, from all walks of life to practise critical thinking and to weigh the information they receive before making a judgement or sharing it with others.
Whereas the Creative Edutainment Lab is an educative interactive community engagement activity to engage members of local, migrant and expat communities in creative and fun re-enactment and role play to learn about the formation of single narratives, the power of rhetoric, persuasion and sensory understanding forms the story creation and non-verbal body expression across cultures.
For more information visit [email protected] and for participation visit: https://smite.mt/participate