The Story Kitchen
Emily Dickey is one of the first Luce Scholars ever to be placed in Nepal. She will work in Kathmandu, the capital, to support the work and programs of The Story Kitchen, a space dedicated to amplifying “herstory,” adding the stories of women to Nepal’s historical narratives through both traditional and new forms of media. The Founder and CEO of The Story Kitchen, Ms. Jaya Lunitel, is a 2015 Asia Foundation Development Fellow.
Emily recently spent a Fulbright year in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, where she studied filmmaking at the Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Digital Research Centre for Qualitative Fieldwork and created collaborative video projects with members of the Innu communities of Sheshatshiu and Natuashish residing in the Canadian Arctic. Previously, she worked for her alma mater as Director of the Willamette University-Chemawa Indian School Partnership, a service learning program based on mutual teaching and learning. Emily’s dedication to partnering with marginalized people to build a more just world through education has also been influenced by interning with the Institute for Policy Studies, where she designed a curriculum for survivors of labor trafficking that used storytelling as a healing and leadership development tool, and by teaching English to Spanish-speaking migrant workers in her hometown of Ashland, Oregon.
Growing up in Southern Oregon shaped Emily’s commitment to the communities and ecologies of rural areas. She conducted research for the U.S. Forest Service, co-authoring a report identifying barriers that tribal members face when trying to exercise their treaty-protected rights to gather traditional plants on federal land. She currently serves on the advisory boards of Rogue Climate, a nonprofit working to help Southern Oregon transition to a renewable energy economy, and the Oregon Community Foundation’s Latino Partnership Program. She has previously served as a member of the Oregon Indian Coalition for Post-Secondary Education and Willamette University’s Native American Advisory Council.