Story-based groupwork and nature connectedness

Alida Gersie has been engaged in environmental storytelling over the past five decades and is a pioneer in the field. In this chapter she offers an extended reflection upon some principles of story-based groupwork that strengthens people&s;s relationship with nature and encourages sustainable, pro-environmental behaviour. She recalls her early experiences in the 1970s of facilitating such groups with children and adults who lived in deprived urban neighbourhoods with high levels of unemployment, ill-health, family breakdown, crime, truancy, violence, racism and poor-quality housing. Her workshops focused on the use of story-based creative processes that aided the group members’ development of constructive problem-solving strategies and related pro-environmental actions. She discusses the principles behind this work at four levels: the theoretical foundations of the groupwork; story selection; the creative preparation for the groupwork in a story-lab; and how the intentional generation of tangible ripple effects supported the achievement of upbeat, eco-friendly outcomes.