Stefani Twyford's Page

A Tribute To My Mother – Mother’s Day 2012

This past weekend was Mother’s Day. I had a lovely day with my oldest son and husband. We had lunch and went to see The Hunger Games which I enjoyed. My favorite thing to do is watch movies so if you’re wanting to do something special for me, take me to a movie, pretty much any movie, and I will be happy.

Lots of my friends were posting messages on Facebook and Twitter about Mother’s Day. Some were photos and little tributes to their own mothers while some were photos of them spending time with their children and celebrating themselves. It was particularly nice to witness the acknowledgement and tribute to mothers. A holiday such as this provides a platform, one day a year, where we take the time to recognize someone that means something to us. In this case, our moms.

My siblings and I bought my mom several new outfits and while I wasn’t there to share the day with her, my sister said she was thrilled to get some new clothes.


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Muhammad Yunus and his Legacy on Poverty

Note: This article was originally published in January 2008:

This past week I had the privilege of seeing Muhammad Yunus speak at a World Affairs Council of Houston luncheon. Yunus, of Bangladesh, is a 2006 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and a 1999 recipient of the Indira Gandhi prize for peace, disarmament and development in India.
In the late 1970′s, he started Grameen Bank (“Bank of Villages”, in Bangla) to address the horrible conditions of poverty he saw in his country. Poor people have no collateral and are therefore not clients of traditional banks. Yunus saw how loans of small amounts, or micro-credit, could advance the rural poor, primarily impoverished women. By creating a program of giving these small loans to support rural business, Grameem has helped over 50 million borrowers in Bangladesh rise out of acute poverty. (Acute poverty is measured by having your children in school, being able to eat three meals a day, have clean drinking water, toilets and the ability to repay their loans.) Grameen also facilitated the transformation of many beggars in the country to businessmen by asking them to begin carrying small products that households might want with them when they went begging. This resulted in the training of many new “personal shoppers” who started bringing items out by request when they went door to door.

Grameen has also seen to the education, both primary and secondary, of their clients’ children. He shared an incident that occurred in Austin the day before his speech in Houston. A young man came up to him and introduced himself, saying that he was the son of one of Grameen’s first women to receive a loan. He recalled how, as a small child, he used to accompany his mother to Grameen’s offices once a month where she repaid her loan. He was now a student at the University of Texas. I was moved by the pride that reflected on Mr. Yunus’s face in the telling of that story. What a legacy!

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Video Biography – What’s The Real Story?

“What’s the real story?” “How do you get the skeletons out of the closet?” “I want to know all the dirt.” I’ve had several discussions over the past few weeks on this topic and I think this is something important to weigh in on.

I view myself as a video biographer. My job is to tell a visual story. My client is usually the subject, the children of the subject(s), or someone who has hired me to tribute the subject. There is a story there, and my first job is to figure out what it is, and then tell it using video, music, photographs and voiceover,  so that the viewing audience can understand it. The work I do is pretty specific in that my ultimate goal is to create knowledge, understanding and honor inside of a video biography created for future generations.

Does this include the dirt? Maybe. Sometimes people have to come to terms with dark and troubling things that have happened in their lives and feel free to talk about it. With other people, the wounds may still be too fresh and painful to discuss, and for some, they just want to spare their family the pain of hearing about these incidents.

A few years ago we worked with a holocaust survivor whose children had never directly heard her accounting of her story. Even though she was a guest lecturer in schools and organizations, she preferred to spare her children directly hearing the story. When we recorded her, her son-in-law sat in the room. He said this was the first time he had ever heard her speak about her experiences.

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How Much Should You Pay A Personal Historian?

Dan Curtis, my friend and fellow Personal Historian in Victoria, BC, recently penned this excellent blog posting on determining the costs of a personal history. This article tackles head-on, the perceived discrepancies of pricing when shopping for a historian. From the buyer’s point of view, it can often be difficult shopping for this service as in their mind, they’re just looking for a tribute, and may not appreciate the vast range of options available today. Dan has attempted to provide examples that show the context of pricing. Keep in mind the numbers he suggests are in Canadian dollars and because they are examples, may not be reflective of what you find when you begin your search for the historian that is the right match for you.

How Much Should You Pay A Personal Historian?
July 8, 2009

A common question I get is, “How much would a personal history cost?” I tell people it’s a little like going to a car dealer and asking, “How much do your cars cost?” If you’re looking at a used economy model, you’re going to pay much less than for a luxury sedan. Similarly a personal history can be simple or complex.

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