Raising voices and visibility through story with Storyo
Photo credit: @ayanophotography.nz
By putting a spotlight on narratives from diverse wāhine and non-binary in Aotearoa, Storyo founders Elina Ashimbayeva and Steven Male hope to inspire others with real, vulnerable stories that don’t often get the visibility they deserve.
Working within the government and technology sectors, Elina found she often encountered stories about founders, creatives and professionals that were centered around certain narratives of success. It became clear to her that these stories weren’t necessarily a true representation of more diverse perspectives and backgrounds, and served to showcase a potentially limiting version of what contribution really looks like.
Motivated to create change, Elina and Steven started talking to, and sharing the stories of, their own friends; stories that were significant not necessarily for their traditional measures of success, but for their realness, their honesty and their diversity of perspective.
Storyo has since grown to not only a platform that showcases over 100 stories from women and gender diverse folk, but also live events that connect communities of people who want to celebrate and be inspired by the ‘normal’ journeys of the people around them.
Redefining success
In sharing these stories, Elina hopes more people will feel empowered to celebrate their own journeys, while recognising and validating the lived experiences of others.
“We noticed that when we started asking our friends to do interviews, their initial reaction was ‘Oh I’m not good enough. I haven’t started a company. I don’t have a website’. But that’s not what we were looking for. We realised that because we celebrate the idea of success by growth or numbers or job titles or visibility, that they felt like their story wasn’t worth sharing. But this was actually about pulling out the stories that put a different lens on success, vulnerability and contribution”, says Elina.
“In terms of impact, the easy things to measure are the engagement, comments and likes. It’s good to have them, but that’s not our success metric. For us, it’s hearing about how our stories have been used in classrooms to inspire kids in STEM classes. Or hearing from someone who has shared their story who now feels like their voice and their journey is important. Or hearing that we’ve helped open conversations or challenged someone’s thinking around perceived stereotypes or prejudice”, Elina says.
Photo credit: Becki Moss
Diversity in tech
Their kaupapa caught our attention, with their mission to help others learn from the stories of people across different genders, sexual orientations, ethnicities, abilities and ages aligning with our own ethos of advocating for greater diversity in the workplace.
In particular, their recent series sharing the stories of women and non-binary in tech showcased the professional and personal journeys of a range of people working within the tech industry in Aotearoa. These stories are raw, inspired and honest, sharing their backgrounds, their challenges and their experiences working in a world where they have potentially felt marginalised or disempowered. And while the stories come from women and non-binary, they are not necessarily focused around that part of their identity.
“Showcasing diversity is about conversations about justice and equity, but it has definitely improved my own life too! I didn’t realise how much I didn’t know, and now I think ‘Wow, my world is so much richer with all these people in it’”, Elina says.
Supporting Storyo
To help Storyo continue to share more of the stories that matter, we’ve put our support behind their next video series, which will showcase stories from seven gender-diverse founders from a range of creative and purpose-driven businesses.
For Elina, having sponsorship from businesses like Brightly who believe in their purpose means Storyo can be a more sustainable pursuit, allowing collaboration with different communities to continue, sharing the stories that matter and ensuring they can run in-person events - while providing kai for everyone involved!
For us at Brightly we’ve learned a lot from the Storyo team and the wonderful people and stories they have shared. We know that the tech industry has a long way to go in providing safe and supportive workspaces and are working on this ourselves. We hope that by supporting Storyo a wider range of people will be inspired to work in tech and startup businesses, and we’re super excited to see the next series come to life!
The founder series is set to premiere at a community event on Tuesday 28 September; keep an eye out here for a link to the series online once it’s live! Watch their recent stories and share in the Storyo mission here.