Call for proposal – Living Heritage: A Storytelling Toolkit (closed)

The British Council is looking to engage with a creative team to support our new initiative developing Living Heritage – A Storytelling Toolkit to help local communities in Ninh Thuan, Gia Lai - Kon Tum, and Ho Chi Minh City tell stories about the values of their cultural heritage. This initiative is part of the Community Cultural Heritage strand of work by Heritage of Future Past, which aims to support local communities across Vietnam to use heritage as a resource to stimulate local livelihood development and inclusive growth.

The followings are important to help you understand the work under this assignment:

1. End results will be a toolkit including everything a person needs to tell stories about their heritage; and a series of workshops to help community members to effectively use the toolkit.

2. It is essential that this toolkit will be jointly developed with local communities in the target locations. This means extensive stay, research and working with members of these communities to ensure that content of the toolkit reflects authentic knowledge of local cultural heritage and their lifeworld, and the final product is fit for use primarily by local people.

3. We envisage that this toolkit would comprise of 4 main parts:

Part 1: One set of common storytelling top tips suitable for intended users.

Part 2: Three sub-sections of well researched, well presented and culturally appropriate story content about local cultural heritage in the three target locations. These can include creative tools that users can easily integrate into their story telling or can be utilised/displayed in the communities (i.e. printed stickers for children, booklet for adults, video illustrating part or full story, etc.).

Our work with local communities in Ninh Thuan, Gia Lai – Kontum, and Ho Chi Minh City led us to experiencing and appreciating a diverse range of valuable local cultural heritage assets, one cannot be considered out of the context with the others or out of the local context. We have learned about the Cham ritual music performance in Ninh Thuan, the Gong culture of the central highlands in Gia Lai and Kontum, and Cai Luong theatre and other forms of music and performing arts native to the South of Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City. We would recommend these heritage values be explored in their native lands and communities as an integral part of their lifeworld. We are open to discuss with interested teams/individuals to brainstorm what the final product might look like and how it would benefit the local communities we work with.

Part 3: A section of practical and locally appropriate “do’s” and “don’ts” (i.e. environmental-friendly, fair-trade, cultural authenticity, diversity of cultural expressions, ethnic minority rights).

Part 4: An adaptable storytelling format for users to develop their own heritage stories.

4. We envisage that this storytelling toolkit will be highly visual and interactive. Accompanying texts will need to come in the locally chosen language, Vietnamese and English.

5. We will be able to engage experts to advise you for the research and development of this toolkit in diverse areas such as ethnology, ethnomusicology, history, arts history, Cham culture, Central Highlands culture, Southern culture, tourism, culture and development.

A creative team (two to three persons) with:

(i) advanced visual skills (photography, graphic, animation etc.) and excellent storytelling skills;

(ii) experience in working with diverse communities (including outside of urban areas)

(iii) availability to travel and work during the specified timeline.

- Professional fee. Your proposal should clearly indicate your professional fee corresponding with a work schedule for the entire assignment (i.e. daily rate x people x number of working days). Do not include other costs such as travel expenses or production expenses, i.e. printing).

- All domestic travel expenses as required by the assignment, reimbursable using actual receipts based on a work and travel schedule agreed in advance.

Please send: (i) your proposal (maximum two A4 pages) expressing your interest, addressing all requirements and proposing a work schedule and professional fee for this assignment; and (ii) a portfolio demonstrating your skills and past experience to vnarts@britishcouncil.org.vn before 15 October 2020. Note that any files larger than 10MB should be sent via an internet link.