BBC Leicester invited a group of people to a storytelling workshop called Telling Lives.
In three days 10 people learned to tell stories, write a script and record it for BBC Radio Leicester and right here on bbc.co.uk/leicester.
The stories are short, about two minutes or 250 words. But they are also personal, powerful and revealing.
The leaders of the workshop, Joanna Bostock and Parminder Dosanjh are looking for more people to take part in these workshops.
Everyone has a story to tell and if you want help in writing yours get in touch by emailing joanna.bostock@bbc.co.uk. The writers Edmiro Bastisa  | | Edmiro Bastisa |
Edmiro, aged 24, has been in Leicester for six months. He is here working in a factory and studying English at college.He says he's football mad and loves to listen to music. Edmiro now lives with his sister and two cousins in Leicester but had to leave the rest of his family behind in Portugal. His story is about how hard it was to break away from his home town of Guimaraes, but why he felt he had to. Cledwyn Rowles  | | Cledwyn Rowles |
Cledwyn has lived in Leicestershire for about 20 years, but originally comes from South wales. He says it was a passion for reading and writing that made him want to take part in the Telling Lives Project. Cledwyn's unemployed but fills his days doing a lot of charity and church work. He is 59 now, but Cledwyn wanted to tell us about his childhood in his story. It is about how the best fun can often be found in the most unusual of places. Laura Ruiz  | | Laura Ruiz |
Laura, aged 27, is very tied to her roots in Spain. She has been in Leicester for 2 years and is working hard at college to improve her English. Laura also works in a food factory to make ends meet. She's a big fan of classic films with The Marx brothers and Charlie Chaplin being particular favourites. She really enjoyed taking part in the Telling Lives Project and is excited about hearing her voice on BBC Radio Leicester. Laura's story is about her love for the countryside in her home country and how much she misses it when she's over here. Muna Jama Muna is only 22-years-old but has already fitted a great deal into her life. She came to live in Leicester two years ago and now is a student at Leicester college. Muna particularly enjoys reading and socialising with her friends. She has a young son and says by living in Britain she hopes he can have a better chance at life. Her story is about her childhood in Somalia, she was forced to grow up fast because of the troubles she faced. Muna says she hopes people will see how through her difficulties, she has become a very strong woman. Stephen Mewies  | | Stephen Mewies |
Stephen, aged 26, has lived in Leicester all his life. He has one brother and one sister and at loves history and reading. He wanted to take part in the Telling Lives project because he has a passion for words and language. His story was a difficult one to tell but he felt it was important that people heard it. It is about how Stephen has learned to live with depression and how he has moved forward with his life. Maria Ines Ardura  | | Maria Ines Ardura |
Maria left her home in Barcelona just 3 months ago and came to Leicester to learn English. Maria is 38 and for 11 years worked as a journalist in Spain. As well as improving her English she's helping people in Leicester to learn Spanish. Maria's story is about the differences she's noticed in the Spanish and British was of life, and how it makes her miss home. Mariusz Maly  | | Mariusz Maly |
Finding that work life balance is always difficult but for Mariusz it was much more difficult. That's the story that he wanted to tell in the Telling Lives workshop. It's about a year since 20 year old Mariausz first came to Leicester, now, it's his home and he works at a factory in Lutterworth and studies English at Leicester college. He has really got into hip hop music and recording and hopes to do more of that in the future. Ali Mohammed  | | Ali Mohammed |
Ali lives with his brother in Leicester. He has only been here for eight months and works in customer services and studies English at college. Ali's big love is basketball but he also enjoys using computers and the Internet. Twenty nine-year-old Ali has moved around a lot in his life but chose to write about his early childhood in Somalia. It was because of civil war that he had to leave his homeland and it's something he still thinks about a lot. Gergely (Greg) Papp Gergely has been working as an au pair for a family in Leicester for 7 months. He thought it was a good opportunity to come to England and learn the language. Back home in Hungary he was a fire and security engineer - so working with children is a bit of a change! Greg's 24 and from Budapest he enjoys reading and travelling. His story is about the quirks of English Life and how something quite everyday can been seen as unusual through a stranger's eyes. Pei-Yun Lin  | | Pei-Yun Lin |
Pei-Yun loves all things to do with the arts. In Taiwan she majored in sociology at college and worked with a theatre group for three years. She is now studying performing arts in Leicester and still has dreams of stardom. Pei-Yun wanted to take part in the Telling lives project because she loves sharing stories with others and wanted to understand more about other people's lives. Pei-Yun's story is about how even at 25-years-old, she can't let go of her childhood dreams. | 
