What stories do we tell ourselves to transform the future?
Written by: Daniel Uribe - Executive Director, Corona Foundation
From a very young age and throughout our lives, we are exposed to stories and narratives that shape our identity, our perception of reality, and our way of understanding society and the systems in which we live immersed.
In today's hyperconnected, fast-paced, and often hopeless world, complex problems demand a long-term vision. A shift in mindset and behavior is needed to transform power dynamics and our perspective on the future. This is where we must return to the foundations of storytelling, to generate positive change, imagine possible futures, and modify the structures and behaviors we address through philanthropy.
Currently, pressing issues such as climate change, armed conflicts around the world, polarization, fears about artificial intelligence, and life-threatening diseases often paint a bleak picture of the future. It's difficult to see the light when we are constantly bombarded with information that predicts the worst.
For this reason, thousands of civil society organizations, as well as public and private institutions, have joined forces around the world in recent decades to counteract the hopelessness that leads to anguish, distrust, apathy, and inaction. They do so through narrative transformation strategies, highlighting stories of hope where the future is indeed possible and sharing the accounts of those who, despite difficulties, persist in believing, acting, and positively transforming their environment.
These narrative change strategies propose reinventing the stories we tell ourselves about the world in order to influence our beliefs and behaviors. These initiatives are integrated with interventions that utilize behavioral science, which is increasingly prominent as more organizations and institutions seek to understand social problems through the workings of the human brain to improve decision-making and individual and collective behavior. The transformation of “mental models” and ingrained beliefs can also be addressed from a fundamental perspective such as language. By understanding language as a tool for change and fertile ground for constructing new narratives, unexpected and powerful results have been achieved worldwide. Movements like #MeToo, which has profoundly impacted the lives of thousands of women victims of sexual harassment and inspired films and television series watched by millions, or #BlackLivesMatter, which provided a powerful narrative framework for protests against police violence toward the African American community, exemplify this. Similarly, the #StayHome movement promoted individual and collective care behaviors during the 2020 pandemic, helping to mitigate the effects of COVID-19.
The way to "install" these new stories in the collective consciousness is through the creation of narrative transformation strategies that achieve two fundamental objectives:
First, infiltrate traditional discourse by mobilizing philanthropic efforts toward close collaboration with those who control the platforms that generate the messages we consume daily, whether through mass media, the arts, or conversations in public and private spaces. Philanthropy must use its influence and connections to work with journalists, screenwriters, media outlets, artists, and influencers, as they have the ability to create captivating, intelligent, and emotionally resonant stories that can "strike a chord" and stay in people's minds, shaping the prosocial behaviors we seek to promote.
It is also crucial that philanthropy shift its focus to mobilizing these new narratives from within the communities that experience the problems firsthand. They must be provided with the necessary tools so that they themselves, through their own languages and cultural elements, can create stories of change that resonate with their environment and speak their language.
Furthermore, narrative change strategies must bring together diverse actors to coordinate sustainable, long-term efforts. These processes take time and are rarely achieved through isolated communication campaigns or individual initiatives.
At Fundación Corona, we have been learning about and promoting narrative transformation processes through partnerships and initiatives that seek to change perceptions and relationships surrounding youth, leadership, and resource allocation. Our commitment to addressing social problems from a systemic perspective includes using these narrative transformations and changes in mindset as essential elements for improving quality of life and promoting social mobility in Colombia.
Through initiatives like GOYN (Global Opportunity Youth Network) Bogotá and GOYN Barranquilla, we have supported a significant process of narrative transformation focused on young people who are neither studying nor working in Colombia. The goal is to change existing mental models about them, amplify their voices, and facilitate their access to better opportunities for education and decent employment.
FROM “NEETs” TO “YOUTH WITH POTENTIAL”
What is the difference between calling a young person who is neither studying nor working a "NEET" and calling them a "Young Person with Potential" or an "Young Person of Opportunity"? At first glance, it may seem like a minor difference between two expressions, but from the perspective of narrative change processes as a tool for social transformation, the difference is significant.
The word "Nini" is probably familiar to us: we've seen it in news headlines, social media posts, or even heard it from our family members. In fact, many of us may frequently use it to refer to young people in Colombia who are neither studying nor working.
There seems to be a collective consensus on what a "NEET" is: a young person, possibly lazy, without major ambitions or responsibilities, who aims to achieve everything in life the easy way. This perception of the "NEET" identity has been formed through a process of narrative construction: it's a story we've heard repeatedly until it has become a popular belief.
The idea that "NEETs" (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) are young people with no future and a lost cause for society is the "mental model" that this constant narrative has collectively created. In contrast, the expression "Young People with Potential," associated with people between 14 and 28 years old who are neither studying nor working or who are in the informal sector, sounds like a new story, something we are beginning to hear and discover for the first time.
The reality is that data and evidence tell a very different story about young people who are neither studying nor working, who represent three out of every ten in Colombia. According to figures from the GOYN Bogotá Youth with Potential Report, these men and women, between the ages of 14 and 28, are actually the opposite of what is perceived as "NEETs" (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). They are people full of energy, dreams, and a desire to study, find decent jobs, and start businesses, but they lack the necessary opportunities to do so. In short, they are young people who aspire to build a promising future and get involved in public affairs to improve both their quality of life and that of their communities, but the system does not provide them with the opportunities, channels, or tools to achieve their goals.
For this reason, through our support of GOYN, we have backed narrative transformation strategies that seek to work directly with these young people, empowering them to propose and generate key messages about their own identity. These groups of young people are creating their own stories and disseminating them through various channels, both mass media and community-based, in order to change the negative representation society holds of them and focus attention on what is essential: collaboration among stakeholders to offer them more and better opportunities for education and employment.
This work has been based on a fundamental understanding: narratives are not universal; they vary according to context, and therefore there is no “secret formula” for change. It is necessary to experiment, test, and iterate until (page 52) the messages that best adapt to the local culture are found. In Barranquilla, for example, its particularities have been thoroughly analyzed in order to focus narrative power on the voice and idiosyncrasies of its “young people with potential,” strengthening their confidence and transforming them into creators and disseminators of their own stories.
This effort to transform the narrative, which we have been carrying out together with GOYN Bogotá and GOYN Barranquilla for several years, has already yielded concrete results. In Bogotá, for example, our advocacy has led to public policies that now refer to this group as “youth with potential.” Furthermore, programs with names like “youth with opportunity” already exist.
In addition to this process, at the Corona Foundation we are also promoting, articulating, and coordinating similar initiatives that foster new narratives on topics such as public leadership, results-based pay schemes, and trust building. Furthermore, we observe our partners working in key areas for the country, such as the silver economy and the regenerative economy, among others.
We recognize the importance of mobilizing all our efforts to continue transforming the present and building the future of Colombia, one story at a time. On this path of narrative transformation, we continue to learn that these processes require time (several years) and that it is crucial to strengthen our collective capacity to adapt, experiment, and learn from our mistakes, always striving for the best results. Therefore, we invite all philanthropy stakeholders to work collaboratively on these narrative change strategies, combining efforts, examining our own limiting beliefs, and fostering narrative change within our organizations as well. Furthermore, it is vital that we learn to measure the impact of these collective transformation processes.