COVID-19 Comms Tips #9: Narratives We Love

Our newsletters so far have been packed with written content, so as the busy world returns, this week we are going light on the words. We have instead a small collection of narratives we love that have come out of our COVID-19 experiences.

Explaining our challenge.

Dr Siouxsie Wiles said this week that, as a scientist, her collaboration with Toby Morris on COVID-19 communications has been the most important of her career. We 100% support this. How we talk about science and evidence is as important as the knowledge we acquire.

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You can now see all the explanations and animations that Siousxie and Toby created in one place here.

Visioning our future.

There has been a proliferation of think pieces and position papers about our post COVID-19 future. Our friends at Tokona te Raki did the most beautiful job of presenting an inclusive vision of our future based on the amazing potential of our Rangatahi. They also have a concrete and positive vision of  te Tiriti o Waitangi partnerships in our shared future - a cornerstone of Aotearoa New Zealand’s inclusive future.

You can read it here.

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Leading with values and naming the barriers.

Finally, this video We Make The Future from Anat Shenker-Osorio and The Solutions Project is a masterclass in leading our narratives with the values we share, and making clear the barriers we face (exclusion and division) and naming who put them there. It is a great example of  showing why and how an inclusive approach to creating our future is the solution we need right now. We love it!

Further resources

  • Last week Jess was interviewed for an article on fake news and misinformation during COVID-19. It is on RNZ here.

  • You can get more guidance on narratives to use during COVID-19 in the message guide you were sent when you signed up for this newsletter. 

  • If this email was forwarded to you and you don’t already have our guide, you can get a copy and future emails like this by signing up here. Or just get the guide here

  • We’ve also made a short checklist of things to think of as you develop your COVID-related communications. It works together with our guide and you can get a copy here

  • All the previous emails in this series are also available as blog posts here

Get in touch with Rachel@theworkshop.org.nz if you would like to talk to us about how we can help you with specific advice or do a remote training for your team on narratives for change

By being together in this crisis we will emerge stronger together after it.

Jess, Marianne, Sharon, Lucia and Rachel, at The Workshop