Raise your voice! Women must be heard on hazardous conditions, everyday crises and official disasters, disaster prevention and sustainable recovery from disaster. Capture your experience for family members. Preserve your history and women's histories. You can start by speaking your mind in the box below. With your permission, we will archive these for easy access by all in the years to come.

Tell us your story

Let everyone know what happened, and why—or what might have happened and what you and others did to prevent this. GDRA will not pass along your contact information without your permission, but please remember that anything you write here is open to any visitor to our GDRA website. Tell your story by typing out your story and sending us a message in the box below.

Tell your family

Heritage Makers: Digital Scrapbooking is one example among many for preserving your personal experiences, especially for those in your family. This is part of the cultural heritage of your community and of women's history.

Tell America through StoryCorps [click here for FAQ]

StoryCorps is a nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, over 50,000 everyday people have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and on our Listen pages. You can read more about them their mission and history on their website.

Connect with StoryCorps when it comes to your community. Call your friends and neighbors and go together to record  your ideas and experiences. It's free and simple, with plenty of help on-line for planning and recording in a StoryCorps booth.

What a wonderful way to celebrate a birthday or other family ceremony–or how about Mother's Day? Your group or friends might want to get together one day in September, National Preparedness Month or how about October 8, the International Day for Disaster Reduction? Think about sharing women's stories as part of a disaster anniversary ceremony in your community. Designating a Women's Preparedness and Resilience Day in your community would be a great way to institutionalize women's history of disaster locally. Learn more about your past from the women who lived through it, and arrange conversations with the young to learn more about their passions.

Other opportunities to capture women's experiences include a local "(Do) ask and (Do) tell" event for those who endured gender-based violence related to a disaster, perhaps organized in October, which is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, or September, Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

How about Earth Day? Women's Suffrage Day, August 22? Birthdays of women elders and activists in your community who have helped build resilience to the "everyday" disasters and the big ones?

You might consider doing some fundraising to bring StoryCorp to your community center to record women's oral histories of drought or food security or traditional ways of adapting to climate changes. What an important part of our nation's history this is-we need to learn from it. StoryCorps has a special interest in learning the stories of Latinas and other women of color-and so does the GDRA.

More on StoryCorps

In addition to weekly broadcasts on NPR, StoryCorps stories are available as a downloadable podcast. Consider renting a Story Kit, portable packages that include professional recording equipment and a User’s Guide to record interviews in the comfort of your own home. These kits are designed for individual and family use, rather than large groups.  StoryCorps will bring portable recording equipment to your location to record up to six 40-minute interviews per day. Organizations across the country have used Door-to-Door sessions to celebrate anniversaries and milestones, add a personal voice to fundraising and marketing materials, and provide the meaningful StoryCorps experience to their community This level of direct service has a sliding scale fee that may work for some nonprofit women's organizations.

You can also simply check the website for information about when StoryCorps is coming your way and book a reservation on line or by phone: 800-850-4406, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.A StoryBooth is a soundproof recording studio. It is open year-round to collect stories in its home city.