Health Systems Innovation
Community Development and Visioning
Harm Reduction Education and Knowledge Mobilization  

Story Walks

Story Walks are guided experiential journeys foregrounding the voices of People With Lived and Living Experience. They are generally two-hours in length, and serve groups of up to 25 participants. Individuals gather together in a space hosted by the Walk With Me team where they are invited to sit in circle. We introduce ourselves and our work and speak to the weight of the crisis and the gravity of the stories. Following this introduction, we invite participants to don wireless headsets and walk together on a guided audio journey while listening to the voices of People With Lived and Living Experience and their allies (static listening options are available). We walk together over and under bridges, through parks, in residential and industrial areas while allowing the stories to ‘wash over us’. The act of walking, we have found, enables various layers of processing to occur. Following the walk, participants gather together again in-circle, and are offered food (usually chili or soup). Together we process the insights shared during the walk, and co-create new ways forward. 

Walk With Me has delivered story walks in a variety of contexts, such as harm reduction education and training, community visioning, strategic development, staff development, research, and more. Our team has walked with over 40 teams within Island Health, over 20 teams within North Island College, and over 300 groups in communities throughout Vancouver Island and beyond. Since the inception of this work, we have walked with over 6,000 people.  We have been honoured to create Story Walks in collaboration with communities in Campbell River, Comox Valley, qathet/Powell River, and on interconnected issues such as Prescribed Safe Supply, the Toxic Drug Crisis in Trades, and Cultural Approaches to Harm Reduction.

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To book a Story Walk - Connect With Us