First Animated Family Stories!

Learning Life is pleased to announce that three of our family diplomats (FDs) have had their stories animated.  Thanks to Learning Life Board of Directors Chair, Joe Toles, who sponsored the animation of their stories, FDs Nusrat Jahan Nipa from Bangladesh, and Maria & Marvella Kavuma from Uganda, have a new medium of animated video to communicate their family stories.

Nusrat, who has now won two Learning Life awards for her storytelling, tells the tragic story of her aunt’s suicide.  Watch her short family story here.

Maria and Marvella, in turn, carry on a dialogue about respecting Ugandan tradition while empowering girls.  Watch their short story here.

Nusrat, Maria and Marvella’s stories were voted the most compelling in the culminating meeting of a series of Learning Life storytelling workshops that ran from November 20, 2022 to January 29, 2023 led by Joe Toles.  See below actual photos of Nusrat and her husband, and Maria and Marvella, and learn more about Learning Life’s other FDs and their families worldwide here.

The workshops followed the successful completion of Learning Life’s first online international FD training in July to October 2022.  The training launched Phase 2 of Learning Life’s Family Diplomacy Initiative (FDI).  FDI is an ambitious, long-term, grassroots effort to connect, train and empower a growing international corps of family diplomats to participate in decision-making at local to global levels.  We envision a world more connected and caring because every family has one or more family diplomats, and those citizen diplomats advocate effectively via nonprofits, businesses, media and governments for the needs, concerns and aspirations of families worldwide. 

FDI’s Phase 1, launched in 2016, initiated live international family dialogues and connected a growing number of people (now over 15,000) worldwide to FDI on Facebook.  Phase 2 is focused on training a growing international corps of volunteer FDs with an eye, in Phase 3, to connecting these FDs to governments, nonprofits, businesses and media so that they can advocate effectively on issues that affect their family and other families like them, from cancer, suicide and domestic violence, to war, climate change and women’s empowerment.  

The next international FD training is happening July 9 to October 29, every Sunday, 12:00-1:30pm, live via Zoom.  To learn more and apply to be included in our 2023 training cohort, visit Learning Life’s FD training application page.