Awake Not Sleeping: The Power of Storytelling to Activate Gender Equality and Respectful Relationships in Our Minds, Homes, and Communities

Abstract:As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world in 2020, UN Women Europe and Central Asia's Awake Not Sleeping: Reimagining Fairy Tales for a New Generation Initiative brought over 120 feminist writers and gender experts together through a series of online workshops and writers' circles. The key purpose of these workshops was to consider how gender inequality and its intersecting issues could be explored and reimagined in fairy tales and to support writers to create a decidedly different and transformative fairytale collection. Written from multiple perspectives this article describes the development and editing process that shaped this collection, the principle of care that was core to the initiative, and the importance of engaging storytelling with deep respect for the reflective and creative capacity of young readers.