Storytelling Cafés
Where stories come to life—through writing, performance, and shared experience.
What Are Storytelling Cafés?
Storytelling Cafés are multi-week workshops that guide participants in writing and performing their own stories.
Focused on newcomers, seniors, and community members, these events:
-
Build English speaking and communication skills
-
Improve confidence and public speaking
-
Reduce isolation through creative community connections
-
Culminate in a live community performance and dialogue session
Purpose
Storytelling Cafés are designed to serve individuals from diverse backgrounds who often face barriers to creative expression, social inclusion, confidence, and visibility. Led by experienced facilitators, writers, and performance coaches, each Storytelling Café creates a safe and inclusive space where participants can express themselves, build confidence, and connect across cultures, sectors, professions, and generations.
Each café culminates in a live community performance or discussion open to members of the public or select community stakeholders. These performances and discussions:
-
Showcase the creativity, talents, and lived realities of underrepresented identities.
-
Invite audience members to build empathy, reduce stigma, and connect through listening and participative engagement.
-
Create a space where story becomes a bridge—not just between individuals, but across cultures, generations, and lived experiences.
Raise the Room: Our Storytelling Café Fundraising Campaign
Help us bring lived experiences to the stage—one café, one voice, one community at a time.
A Storytelling Café can be a day long or multi-week project. Each year, we aim to host a minimum of three cafés across Manitoba to uplift newcomers, youth, and seniors through story writing, community engagement, and public dialogue.
Your support helps us provide:
-
Free writing and confidence building workshops
-
An accessible venue and event production
-
Honoraria for community storytellers
-
Translation and cultural supports
-
Facilitated community discussions and post-event engagement
Partner With Us
Are you a business, foundation, or community organization that values creativity, connection, and inclusion? You can sponsor a Storytelling Café and help bring these transformative programs to life. In return, your organization will receive:
-
Recognition in printed and digital event materials
-
Acknowledgment on our website and social media
-
Visibility during the live public performance
-
A unique opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to community, equity, and the arts
Host a Storytelling Café Event
Many newcomers, youth, and seniors face deep barriers to artistic participation, community building, and specialized resource access due to:
-
Language insecurity
-
Time and financial constraints
-
Lack of accessible, age-friendly, identity-affirming, and culturally safe spaces
-
Isolation in rural or underserved communities
Storytelling Cafés remove those barriers by providing:
-
Free participation and materials
-
Culturally responsive, trauma-informed facilitation
-
Transportation and translation supports (when available)
-
Local partnerships to bring workshops into the heart of communities
-
Connections to skilled facilitators, coaches, and mentors who can help them navigate barriers
Live Storytelling, Real Impact
Each Storytelling Café ends with a performance or community sharing event. Whether its a multi-week workshop that's part of a community celebration or one-day dialogue and resourcing event hosted in a local community hall, Storytelling Cafés are where community connections and transformation become tangible—on stage, in the audience, and in the conversations that follow.