In Austria, the start of the Storytelling cafés had to be postponed due to COVID-19. To stay in contact with the (potential) participants and involve them actively, queraum had to think about alternative ways.

The project team decided to facilitate telephone interviews and asked participants of our neighbourhood group about their individual “travel stories”. Basically, they made sure that the atmosphere during the conversations was informal. However, a few general questions to start the conversation were prepared. For example: What travel experience do you remember fondly? What are the favourite places or places that give you energy? As in the face-to-face chats, however, we quickly moved from one topic to the next. The telephone conversations were therefore a good opportunity to get to know the participants and to “warm up” together for the “Plaudereien“.

The stories were made into short articles that queraum used in the face-to-face Storytelling cafés as soon as it was possible to meet again in person.