Youth Mentoring Action Network (YMAN)
Turning Experience into Story
Client: Youth Mentoring Action Network — a youth development organization launching their Global Ambassador Program
The Challenge:
YMAN had just launched their first-ever Global Ambassador Program — a 10-day immersion experience where Inland Empire youth traveled to Ghana to experience African culture, build global connections, and see themselves reflected in a context beyond what they knew in the U.S. The program was transformative, but it was brand new. YMAN needed to prove the impact to funders, community stakeholders, and future participants — and they needed the story told authentically, in the voices of the young people themselves, not through an organizational report.
The Approach:
I designed and led a three-day workshop at YMAN's center with the inaugural cohort of Global Ambassadors who had just returned from Ghana. We started with a story circle — a facilitated space where young people could share their experiences, process what they'd seen and felt, and hear each other's reflections.
Then I taught them how to turn those stories into scripts. Not generic "what I did on my trip" narratives, but specific, honest reflections on how Ghana had impacted their sense of self, and their understanding of home and belonging.
Finally, we produced short digital stories — videos where the young people's voices, scripts, and reflections came to life visually. The young people wrote, narrated, and shaped their own stories.
The Impact:
YMAN gained powerful, authentic storytelling assets for the Global Ambassador Program — proof of concept told directly by the first cohort
The young people developed storytelling and media production skills they could take with them beyond the workshop
Participants reported feeling heard and proud — their experiences weren't just collected as data, they were honored as knowledge and used to build the future of the program