Some years ago I completed my master degree with a thesis about the useful role of communication and storytelling in helping NGO and non-profit organizations. For this reasons I read and watches a lot of contents about this topic and I knew Elif Shafak. She is a Turkish author and speaker. She has been called Turkey’s most popular female novelist and, actually, she is quite famous in the world because she is writing both in English and Turkish.
Some days ago I found a book of Elif Shafak on the nightstand of one of my EVS flatmates, here in Portugal. So I decided to watch again a speech of this author, that was really useful for my thesis’s research. Watching again this video about the politics of fictions, I found some sentences that were really worthwhile for me at that time.
In that period, for me, these words sound to be really authentic, like some very important goal to reach in life. But I could not imagine how much I will feel close to my heart these words some years later. In fact, I discovered the importance to broke the confort zone, to overcome the inner circle surrounding us and discover more just some months ago, at the beginning of my EVS in Portugal. It was a quiet slow process for me: even when you’ve just arrived in a new place, it’s very natural and easier to look for something that is similar to you, to your ideas, to your habits. I spend many weeks before realizing that the next step for me was starting to look for something different than me.
Of course, Elif Shafak was talking about the power of fiction and storytelling, especially in novels. In my opinion, this is working also in real life. Get in touch with others stories is deeply enriching and effective, one single story from a real person could help you to change your point of view more than a million experiences done alone, by yourself.
EVS offers you the great opportunity to listen to a lot of stories, to ask for more, to know the reality from real people and this is something unique and impossible to do by yourself. It is something that could change you forever and I think that it’s not exaggerated to say this.
I’m grateful to everyone that was available to answer me and tell me a new story.
If you want to watch the entire speech, you can find it here.
