Heartwarming to visit and warm the NewDowse. It looks good and there’s enough for those of us who like comfort (gift exchange, New Zealand craft, Preston, Adam, Freeman, Frances H, McCahon and Harris) and some stuff to startle and excite (Droog, Domestic Futurists). Nuku Tewhatewha looks fabulous, the story of the 8 pou of Kingitanga enticing, and the surrounding leadership stories inspiring. There were other stories alluded to too, when Judith Tizzard in her opening remarks told how the late weaver, Erenora Puketapu-Hetet told her that the way for us all to live together was for us to know and share the stories of our ancestors. There’s much could be done in that vein. You might find some here and of course here.

We’ll share any that we find with you.

And on the radio Chris Laidlaw’s interview with Dr Vincent Felitti who talked about the ways abuse in childhood impacts on our addictions in later life. We need to find ways to share those stories. Maybe this on the Media Rights site can help. Cynthia Lehman says she is making a digital story about her own abuse experiences.

With the release today of the Unicef report assessing child well-being it seems appropriate to highlight Reach Out! An Australian initiative, Reach Out! is an online service that aims to empower youth to help themselves and others through challenging times.

Stories feature heavily as it is through storytelling that young people can reach out and make connections with others facing similar issues. Realising that a text-heavy format risks alienating youth, many of whom may have low literacy skills, Reach Out! takes advantage of digital storytelling.

They’re on the lookout for more stories to showcase, and I’m sure they’d accept a contribution from across the ditch! Although given our shabby showing in the Unicef report perhaps we need to be reaching out to our youth too.

Stories are the new data according to Russell Brown, David Slack and Mark Cubey, who at Kiwi Foo Camp, New Zealand’s invitation-only geek-fest last weekend, made a call for more grassroots participation in attempts to preserve New Zealand’s cultural identity.

Although I didn’t make the exclusive Foo flock, Rod Drury, Don Christie and Mauricio Freitas were there and blogged the session. (Just quietly, why couldn’t a bunch of uber-geeks manage to podcast a session or two?)

Anyway, Russ compared New Zealand’s gated online encyclopaedia, Te Ara, to the more participatory Wikipedia and found Te Ara wanting… wanting user-generated content.

To be fair, Te Ara has solicited community involvement, but this has been on their terms. Back in June we suggested Te Ara use digital storytelling to solve David’s dilemma and “help people tell their own stories in an authentic voice“, because, as Russ et al. suggest, telling stories is the way we keep our culture alive.

(We couldn’t wait for Te Ara, so we helped Graham tell his story.)