The Full Story

Join us for a two day workshop to create and share your stories of experiences, feelings, hopes and thoughts of life during, before and in anticipation of a post-pandemic reality.

This workshop will be held on Saturday, June 24, and Sunday, June, 25 from 10 am–5 pm. In this workshop, participants will be led through a two-day facilitated process involving narrative writing, group discussion, voice-over, and video creation, which will result in a short-form first-person digital story. Participants do not need to have any experience in digital storytelling in order to participate! The workshop will culminate in a public screening event and panel discussion with the storytellers on Thursday, June 29 at the Colonial Theatre.

Storytellers will receive a $100 gift card as appreciation for their participation. Accommodations and interpreter services will be provided as needed, as well as lunch during both workshop days. This opportunity is limited to 10 people. For more information and to register, click here.

For examples of stories, please visit www.ourstorynh.com.

THE INSTRUCTORS

Sarah Kennedy McPhee, MPH, (she/her) has worked in public health for over 20 years, specifically in sexual and reproductive health, in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts, within public and private sectors.  She is a skilled leader, educator and relationship builder, who uses creative thinking, quality improvement methodology and evidence based strategies to address complex public health issues.  Sarah currently works as a freelancer wearing multiple hats in public health, voiceover and storytelling.  She is an adjunct faculty member at Southern NH University in the undergraduate public health program, where she supports aspiring public health professionals as they prepare to enter the field.  She is also a Certified Sexuality Educator with the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, which she applies as a guest speaker in secondary education and college health settings. In addition to public health, Sarah is also a professional voiceover artist. Using her background in theater,  Sarah lends her voice to children’s books, medical copy and telephone scripts, among other genres and projects.  The voice is the window to the soul, and she strives to deliver an authentic message with every script that she narrates.  Sarah is a certified digital storytelling facilitator and enjoys working with communities to create spaces for people to tell their authentic stories.  She is thrilled to be able to bring this skill set to the Our Story NH project, which offers an opportunity for residents to tell their story of life during the Covid 19 pandemic, and share it with the project (if they so choose) for a historical record of this unique time.  Storytelling is the connective thread in all of Sarah’s professional endeavors, as she believes authentic stories help to promote positive social change.  Sarah received her Bachelor of Arts from Vassar College and Master of Public Health from the University of New Hampshire.  She lives in Epping with her family and enjoys travel, good food, people watching, and art of all kinds.  


Kirsten Durzy, MPH is a public health professional who has worked in community health and education settings in multiple states,  within higher education, tribal communities, nonprofits and in the public sector. She is an epidemiologist who has provided expertise in strategy, governance, community engagement and facilitation in various public-private collaborations and coalitions across New Hampshire, most specifically in the areas of evaluation, HIV, Infectious Disease, data visualization and mapping and building equitable and just organizations. Kirsten previously served as the Health Equity Project Director II for the CDC Foundation with assignment to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, where she provides strategic expertise on COVID and other equity issues. Kirsten is passionate about health equity, equitable evaluation and research methods and has done extensive work in the areas of narrative first-person storytelling. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic response, Kirsten served as the Equity Subject Matter Expert for the NH DPHS COVID response, co-leads the NH COVID Equity Task Force, serves a long-standing advisory board team member of the New Hampshire Equity Collective, is an active member of the NH State Health Assessment Community Engagement sub-committee and was appointed to the  NH Governor’s COVID Equity Response Team, where she was part of a five-member team that authored the Initial Report and Recommendations for New Hampshire in July 2020, a strategic roadmap for how NH can address systems wide inequities and build a healthier state. Kirsten has been appointed to multiple state, regional and national committees and boards, Kirsten currently co-leads the OurStory NH storytelling project and serves as Principal Investigator for a Racial and Health Equity Landscape Assessment research project and is honored to have been selected as a 2019 NASTAD Minority Leadership Fellow, a 2021 NH Women’s Foundation AmplifiHER Honoree, a 2021 co-recipient of the NH Public Health Association Raaga Devineni Equity and Justice Award and the 2022 Keene State College President’s Outstanding Woman of New Hampshire Award. Kirsten received her Masters in Public Health from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Bachelors Degree from Mount Holyoke College. She is a mother and photographer and enjoys exploring the wild places in New Hampshire and beyond.