Our Story, Our Lives
Building Community through Storytelling

The telling of our story helps us:

• Come to the heart of our experience as individuals and as a community
• Discover our deeper connections within our community
• Illuminate the important issues in our lives and the life of our community

Participants have the opportunity to:

• grow as individuals within community
• discover the meaningful stories of your community
• build community

And learn the skills to:

• Tell stories
• Evoke the stories of others
• Use storytelling to resolve conflict
• Evaluate the needs of your community

Andre works closely with you to design programs to meet your clients, staff, and organizational needs.

Reflections on Andre Heuer's Work

"It's the best workshop I've ever attended." "We must offer this for our co-workers".

Trauma and stress work to break apart our sense of being in community with others and to alienate us from each other. Membership in a community gives us strength through identity, a sense of belonging, meaning, and shared resources. It is, therefore, important that caregivers regain and maintain their mutual connectedness. Andre Heuer, storyteller, led a group of refugee care providers in a morning of re-building and healing. Our stories provided a safe connecting thread that brought us to each other.

Dr. Heuer's soft-spoken and gentle manner helped participants to relax and to trust and to listen to themselves and each other. Community building happened as the stories were offered and shared.

Evelyn Lennon, M.A., MSW
Project Coordinator, The Center for Victims of Torture
Mineapolis, Minnesota

Participants in Andre's workshop will experience in a concrete way what is meant by community and how they are an integral part of it. Participants are able to see at a glance the intricate web that weaves them together. Conflict and dissent are seen in the shared context of appreciation and hope. As an educator, I see his work as a dynamic and vital way to promote a sense of belonging among the diverse citizens that make up a school's population.

Jennifer Monroe
Reading and language arts teacher, Chicago, Illinois

As a regional membership organization we have members coming together from seven states and many diverse backgrounds. Dr. Heuer's knowledge and abilities brought us together to celebrate our differences, embrace our commonalities, and focus on our hopes for the future of our organization. I highly recommend his work to any organization.

Michael Mann
President, Northlands Storytelling Network

The members of Student Coalition for Social Justice at my University are often stretched to the limit being students, friends, family members, and social justice activists. This unfailing commitment led us to some heated conflicts about religion, gender, and socio-economic backgrounds. Through Andre's expertise of using story with groups like ours, we truly listened to each other and realized that though we all came from different circumstances, we are united. This insight and was enough to sustain us and help us grow stronger in our work and our relationships.

Tricia Nutter
Student, Saint Paul, Minnesota