SKILLUP – OwnVoices: Connecting People Through Stories – Karien van Ditzhuijzen

As an author, how do you deal with issues like ‘cultural approbation’ and the search for ‘Own Voices’? In this session, I will tell about the MyVoice project I led in Singapore – and how building a platform for marginalised groups creates mutual understanding and an important thing we must never neglect: cultural appreciation.

I like to make people think about how we can support marginalised groups in Bali; people who have important stories to tell. The Bali we drive through every day on the way to school or the beach. The Bali of the women that clean our houses, the men that cut our grass. Real people who face real challenges. We can have a group brainstorm: what can we do to help the some of the marginalised groups in Bali find their voice? Are there organisations we could work with? Who likes to get involved?

After a childhood of moving around Asia and Europe, Karien van Ditzhuijzen moved to Singapore in 2012, where she joined a charity supporting migrant domestic workers. In 2014 she founded the MyVoice blog; a place for migrants to share their stories. Karien created the book ‘Our Homes, Our Stories’, an anthology of 28 real-life stories written by migrant domestic workers, in 2018. Her work at HOME inspired Karien’s debut novel ‘A Yellow House’, also published in 2018. As a freelance writer and blogger Karien contributes to several publications and writes fiction for adults and children alike, showcasing the natural world and social issues. Since July 2019 she lives in Bali.