MS Society Northern Ireland

Macmillan Cancer Support

In 2023 into 2024 we partnered with MS Society NI to deliver three online digital storytelling workshops to people living with MS and people caring for others living with the condition.

You can watch the stories in our gallery. Some storytellers chose to publish their stories, others wished to keep them private, and this choice was important to Scottish Book Trust and MS Society NI.

Some of these stories focused on people’s experiences of the condition, and others simply focused on creating stories about hobbies, passions and early childhood.

‘I loved the workshop and found it helpful in my journey of accepting my MS. The group and Chris were so lovely and supportive and really helped with my confidence.’

The workshops were offered by MS Society Northern Ireland as part of their fantastic Reach Out Connect project, funded by the DoH, Mental Health support Fund.

Since 2020, we’ve worked with Macmillan Cancer Support to help people affected by cancer to share the experiences that matter most to them. You can browse the stories here. Or access the Youtube playlist of the stories here.

The stimulus question for our workshops was, ‘What matters to you as a person affected by cancer?’ Macmillan Cancer Support introduced us to the power of this question, inspired by the What Matters to You health campaign, and it has helped over one hundred people to share their digital stories.  

We are proud of each and every one of the people who have created a story in this project, on subjects ranging from employment, intimacy and mental health.  

Macmillan Cancer Support have inspired us with their determination to ensure the stories are shared as part of peer support, training, research and awareness raising. Find out more about the project on Macmillan’s website.

‘It was great to see your story develop and the feeling I got when seeing the edited version was unreal. It has been so therapeutic to unlock my story in such a safe space. I loved all the workshops.’ 

Scottish Adoption and Fostering

Since 2021, we’ve been working with Scottish Adoption and Fostering to create digital stories about the things that matter most to adopted young people and birth parents. These stories have been shared in training sessions for adoption services, information services for prospective adoptive parents, and with other adopted young people as a starting point for conversations about what really matters to them.

Read this article from Scottish Adoption and Fostering to find out more about how they’ve worked with adopted young people to share their stories.