How Art Fosters Understanding and Empathy: The Power of Storytelling for Social Change

Selected 100 classic TED talks, each 8-15 minutes long, covering innovation, personal growth, and future trends. Provides MP3 streaming, downloads, and English transcripts to help improve listening and speaking skills. Ignite your learning passion through the power of ideas! Here is the content of this issue's collection of 100 classic TED talk listening materials. Consistent accumulation brings your English closer to real life!

I'm a writer and director who tells social change stories because I believe stories touch and move us. Stories humanize and teach us to empathize. Stories change us. When I write and direct plays, I'm amplifying voices of disadvantaged groups. I'm fighting the self-censorship that has kept many Ugandan artists away from social political theater since the persecution of artists by former Ugandan president, Edi Amin. Most importantly, I am breaking the silence and provoking meaningful conversations on taboo issues where often silence is golden is the rule of thumb. Conversations are important because they inform and challenge our minds to think, and change starts with thinking.

One of my struggles with activism is its often one-sided nature that blinds us to alternative views, that numbs our empathy, and that makes us view those who see issues differently as ignorant, self-hating, brainwashed, sellouts, or plain stupid. I believe no one is truly ignorant. We are all experts, only in different fields. And this is why, for me, the saying "stay in your truth" is misleading, because if you're staying in your truth, isn't it logical that the person you believe is wrong is also staying in their truth? What results are two extremes that shut out all possible avenues of conversation.

I create provocative theater and film to touch, humanize, and move disagreeing parties to the conversation table to bridge misunderstandings. I know that listening to one another will not magically solve all problems, but it gives a chance to create avenues to start working together to solve many of humanity's problems. With my first play, Silent Voices, based on interviews with victims of the Northern Uganda War between the government and Joseph Conny's LRAA rebel group, I brought together victims, political leaders, religious leaders, cultural leaders, the amnesty commission, and transitional justice leadership for critical conversations on justice for war crime victims. This was the first of its kind in the history of Uganda.

Many powerful things happened that I can't cover them all here. Victims were given the opportunity to sit at the table with amnesty commission leadership and express the big injustices they suffered when the commission ignored them and instead facilitated the resettlement of war perpetrators. The amnesty commission acknowledged the victims' pain and explained the thinking behind their approaches. One thing that stayed with me was when, during my Northern Uganda tour of the play, a man approached me and introduced himself as a former rebel soldier of Joseph Conny. He told me that he didn't want me to feel disappointed due to some of what I considered inappropriate laughter. He explained that his laughter was from embarrassment and a recognition of his own past mistakes. He saw himself in the actors on stage and realized the meaninglessness of his past actions.

So I say: share your truth. Listen to one another's truth. You will discover a more powerful, uniting truth in the middle ground. When I lived in the USA, many of my American friends were shocked at my ignorance of fancy Western dishes like lasagna, for instance. I would ask them if they knew Malacwang, a fancy vegetable dish from my culture, and share it with them. They would tell me about lasagna, and we would leave richer and fuller individuals. Therefore, share your recipe truth. It makes for a better meal. Thank you.