By Yuqian He, MHSS Community Engagement & Project Officer
I can no longer remember the exact moment when I realised that storytelling was one of the most powerful parts of my work. It didn’t arrive as a technique, nor as a sudden insight. It grew quietly, through the small things people shared with us: a myth they grew up believing, a fear they carried but never named, a question whispered only after checking that no one else could hear, a worry about their body, their family, their future. Long before I ever called it “storytelling,” these were already stories.
In community education sessions run through the Multicultural Health & Support Service (MHSS), we often talk about STIs, hepatitis B, safe sex, and consent — topics that sit within deeper layers of culture, shame, migration, family expectations, and the quiet truths people rarely speak aloud.
Information alone often fails to reach those layers.
Stories do. They soften a room. They open doors. They remind people that they are allowed to feel, question, and choose.
When a room softens
We were running a session for a group of teenage girls as part of MHSS work, sitting together in a small circle. Everyone was polite and a little quiet, not quite sure how much they wanted to share. When I asked, “Do you remember your first period?” the room paused, not awkwardly, but with the kind of stillness that comes when a question land close to home.
One girl spoke first. She said she woke up to blood on her bedsheets and completely froze. For a moment, she thought she was hurt, that something had gone terribly wrong. She remembered crying before she even understood what was happening. Then her mother walked in, sat beside her on the bed, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and said, “It’s okay. This just means you’re growing up.”
As she told the story, she let out a small, embarrassed laugh, the kind that comes when fear has finally softened into something gentler.
Around her, the room began to shift. Other girls nodded, drawn to the moment she described, not just the fear, but the presence of her mother: someone who noticed, sat down, and named the experience as something safe. Some recognised that comfort; others recognised its absence. It wasn’t the topic itself that changed the atmosphere, but the way her story showed how being met with calm and care could soften fear, and how rare it is to speak about that moment out loud. It was just one story, shared in one quiet moment, but it opened the room.
The question that waits until the door closes
After another session, a woman waited until everyone had left before approaching me. She stood near the doorway for a moment before speaking, her voice low and careful.
“Can I tell you something only I know?”
She didn’t begin with a question. She began with a story, about her family, about things that were never discussed at home, and about a relative who had died from liver cancer. She spoke in fragments, circling around symptoms she didn’t quite have the words for, and a fear she had been carrying quietly ever since.
Only after telling the story did she pause and whisper, “Do you think I should get tested for hepatitis B?”
In that moment, I realised that storytelling wasn’t just a way to explain health information. It was a way of giving people permission to speak their truth. Her question wasn’t really about testing. It was about whether this was a space where her story, and her fear, could be held with safety and dignity.
What storytelling looks like in practice
Sometimes storytelling takes the form of a small scenario: a couple navigating consent, a family reacting to a hepatitis B diagnosis, a young person caught between cultural expectations. These quiet narratives allow people to recognise themselves without feeling exposed.
Other times, storytelling becomes a metaphor. Monitoring hepatitis B turns into “checking the weather before a storm.” Boundaries become “the doors and windows of a house you get to lock or open.”
And sometimes, storytelling is not spoken at all. It is the silence you hold long enough for someone else to step into. It is knowing when to invite, when to soften, and when to step back. It is the subtle lean forward, the shared glance, the moment when courage moves from one person to another like passing light.
Using storytelling in community education isn’t about selecting the “right” story for a group. It begins with the people in front of you. Instead of assuming what they need, you ask questions that open the door to their own stories: a memory, a belief they grew up with, a family rule that shaped them, or a feeling they’ve never had words for. These fragments often reveal more about culture, background, and concern than any prepared script.
Storytelling is not the story you bring. It is the conditions you create for their stories to appear.
Why storytelling matters in multicultural communities
Across the years of working through MHSS in multicultural communities, I’ve noticed the same pattern repeating itself. When information feels too technical or too distant, people stay quiet. But when a story enters the room, something shifts. A complex topic feels closer, more human. A cultural barrier softens. A language gap narrows. A person who has carried uncertainty or shame for years finally sees themselves reflected in a way that feels safe.
In migrant and refugee communities, where stigma, language, and cultural expectations shape every health decision, storytelling becomes more than a method. It becomes a form of respect. A way of saying, without grand declarations:
I see you. I see where you come from. You don’t have to step into my world; I will meet you in yours.
The story beneath the work
People often ask what makes community education “work.” They point to the slides, the activities, the diagrams, the carefully crafted content. All of these matter, but they are not what changes people.
What truly shifts a room is the moment someone feels understood. The moment they recognise the topic inside their own life: their family, their fears, their hopes. Storytelling bridges knowledge and lived experience, turning workshops into conversations, and conversations into moments of courage.
Over time, through my work with MHSS, I’ve come to see storytelling less as a technique and more as a way of standing with people: listening for what is said and unsaid, noticing when a room softens, and recognising when someone is ready to speak, and when they need time. Because no two communities carry the same histories or silences, every person already holds the beginning of their own journey. Sometimes, they are simply waiting for a story — their own or someone else’s — that helps them recognise it.
