Our Story
What’s Your Story? is an initiative by Heartlines, the Centre for Values Promotion. What began as colleagues sharing their personal stories to the broader team over a number of months, soon grew into a formalised tool to build better relationships, stronger cohesion and a stronger sense of “us”.
The project started in 2016 and was spearheaded by the award-winning film Beyond the River.
Personal storytelling provides a non-threatening foundation from which we can have authentic conversations that help us understand one another better. What’s Your Story? equips people with skills and opportunities to grow in story-sharing and cultivate connections in our churches and communities.
How the What's Your Story? journey began at Heartlines
Four pillars
What’s Your Story? has four foundational pillars: the Beyond the River movie, Bridge leadership engagements, an extensive set of resources to help facilitate story-sharing, and an online platform for featuring personal stories.
Beyond the River
Inspired by true events, this is the nail-biting story of two men from different backgrounds whose quest to win gold in the connects them on and beyond the river. Regarded by some critics as “the most spectacular South African cinema experience of our time!” Beyond the River is the film to kickstart What’s your Story?
Email us to book a group or corporate screening of the film.
Bridge leadership trainings
The Bridge leadership engagement is a two-day, offsite initiative that uses personal storytelling and dialogue as tools to build bridges between key leaders of a system or sector. Once these leaders have gotten to know each other’s stories, they can work together to solve critical issues within their system or industry.
WYS resources
Our team has developed a range of resources to equip you in personal storytelling using the framework of Ask. Listen. Tell.
These resources can be used in various contexts, such as in churches or bible study groups, small groups, youth groups, schools, faith-based groups, campuses or workplaces.
We also have resources that use Beyond the River as a starting point for story-sharing.
Sharing stories
As Heartlines, we’ve seen how story-sharing has impacted us as individuals, and connected us to each other in ways we never expected. And thousands around and beyond South Africa have experienced likewise.
Read, listen to and watch the stories of ordinary people making an extraordinary impact in our nation.