Nayaraq is an organization committed to expanding the use of storytelling methodology to bridge gender gaps around the world. Through innovative and proprietary “train the trainer” workshops, we empower NGOs to deploy the transformative power of storytelling to empower community members and augment their own outcomes.
Founded by Annie Kuster and Sara Surani, Nayaraq began as two separate passion projects that soon merged into a vision of using creative intimacy to build community and knock down gendered barriers. When Sara and Annie met as Fulbright Researchers in Peru in November 2018, they had both been inspired by storytelling and women’s empowerment for years.
Annie’s journey began in 2013 when she first traveled to Cusco, Peru, and met the courageous young mothers at Casa Mantay who encouraged her to more carefully consider the power our histories hold and how validation of lived experiences can empower and inspire.
Similarly, from a young age, Sara found both solidarity and motivation in the stories of her grandmother’s childhood in Pakistan; she knew they held a special power. Through a whirlwind of unexpected events, she found herself in Peru, working with youth in the middle of the Amazon jungle, trying to understand how stories can not just create stronger communities but also mobilize individuals around social challenges that they care most about.
Over a Thanksgiving dinner of lomo saltado and chifa, Sara and Annie began discussing a project that would soon grow to become an organization dedicated to amplifying voices of women, girls, and anyone committed to advancing gender equity in Latin America and beyond. Nayaraq, which means “one with many dreams” in Quechua, the indigenous Peruvian language, was born shortly thereafter. Since then, we have had the pleasure of collaborating across several storytelling projects reaching across continents and organizations and work to continue to make Nayaraq stories the standard for good gender-based storytelling worldwide.
Annie, Sara, and the rest of the Nayaraq team are humbled to invite you to listen to these stories, support these communities, and expand the use of storytelling to touch all who are working to empower women and girls, and men and boys, to see their world a little differently – a little more equitably.
