Storytelling has always been part of my life. My mother’s family was so poor they couldn’t afford to send her to school, and her mother had experienced the same misfortune. Knowledge and memory were passed down through words, fables, and lore. I grew up understanding that stories were not just entertainment, they were survival. They were how culture and identity endured when everything else was stripped away.
Later, my own childhood became a story of forced migration, separation, and reunion. At five years old, I fled Vietnam with my little brother. In the chaos, we were separated from our parents and ended up on a boat alone. That journey and the year we spent in a refugee camp taught me that stories carry fear and grief, but they also carry resilience and hope. Those experiences shaped my earliest understanding of what it means to hold a story: the weight, the responsibility, and the risks.
Looking back, I see how those lessons continue to inform the work I do today. They gave me a deep respect for the responsibility that comes with sharing stories and the harm that follows when they are taken without care. My work, whether building ethical storytelling frameworks, mentoring Story Holders, or challenging workplaces, comes directly from these experiences.
The evolution of unethical storytelling
While working as a leader in a government department, I was presented with a request to share my personal story. Through a sense of responsibility and obligation I shared my story of forced migration. My story became the anchor—positioned as both an example and inspiration for the story-sharing component of a diversity and inclusion training module. I believed in the power and impact of storytelling, so I embedded lived experience into the program, encouraging others to share their journeys of forced migration, trauma, displacement, grief, and racism.
The intent was to build understanding, but I began to see the risks. Stories that were deeply personal were sometimes treated as content, used to strengthen an organisation’s credibility or reputation rather than honoured as the expertise of the people who shared them. My early childhood had already taught me that stories are lifelines. Seeing them repackaged so lightly confirmed how vulnerable Story Holders can be when power sits elsewhere.
The harmful cycle of story-washing
This imbalance plays out often. For instance, every year on World Refugee Day or Harmony Day, organisations post stories of employees with refugee or migrant backgrounds to appear inclusive. Yet, those employees often receive no compensation, no choice in how their story is told, and no recognition beyond that single day. The organisation gains reputational capital. The story holder is left exposed.
I know how this feels. When I’ve seen my own story of separation, survival, and reunion used without care, it has felt like a second displacement. A moment of dignity turned into a tool for branding. That is the danger of story-washing. It looks like solidarity, but it hides deeper power imbalances.
Why ethical storytelling matters
These harmful patterns are why I co-founded Our Race Community almost 10 years ago. I wanted to disrupt the cycle of extraction and exploitation and build conditions where Story Holders are not reduced to case studies, but respected as leaders and experts. Lived experience should be viewed as the highest form of expertise.
We developed the T.E.S.T Framework—Transformational Ethical Story Telling—based on five principles:
· Free, prior and ongoing informed consent: No story should be taken without clear, informed agreement.
· Resourcing and sensitivity: Storytelling must not come at the cost of wellbeing. Support is essential.
· Empowerment: Story Holders are not subjects. They hold authority over their narratives.
· Collaboration and co-design: Stories should be shaped together, not extracted.
· Integrity: Stories should never be edited or reframed to serve another agenda.
These principles reflect lessons I learned as a child. Freedom for me was reunion and dignity, not simply resettlement. Ethical storytelling is about protecting those same values, ensuring that when people share their experiences, they are met with care, consent, and collaboration.
Protecting your power
If you are asked to share your story, you have the right to protect your power. Ask how it will be used, who will hear it, and whether you can approve the final version. Set boundaries. Share only what feels safe. Ask for payment or support, because lived experience is expertise, not charity.
If you are an employer or leader, stop treating lived experience as free content. Pay people for their contribution. Provide aftercare. Build long-term relationships rather than one-off appearances. Provide training to your staff to understand the difference between awareness-raising and exploitation.
Sharing with integrity
As a child, I learned that survival depended on stories being held with care. As an adult, I’ve devoted my work to ensuring others do not carry their stories alone.
Stories are not free. They are precious. They belong to the people who hold them.
When stories are shared with consent, resourcing, empowerment, collaboration, and integrity, they transform—not only audiences, but story holders too. That is the power of ethical storytelling.
Your story should never be taken from you. That is how we share without giving away our power.
Dung Tran is Co-Founder and CEO of Our Race Community.
Top photo – Pictured: Dung Tran, Source: Supplied