Welcome to Storisse: a blog which tells inspiring life stories to showcase beautiful and little known projects in the charitable world.
I hope you enjoy the positive stories I feature here and that they may inspire you to support the charities mentioned at the end of most blog posts.
So why this blog?
I have always been a big fan of stories. I love listening to stories (or reading them – my first ever book was Grimm’s fairytales) and I love telling stories. I believe in the power of stories – they can convince us of facts, when other things cannot.
In this blog, I write stories about things in life meaningful to me, and I often link those stories to good causes or charitable organisations. I hope my stories entertain and engage. They are about beautiful people doing beautiful things.
Sometimes I feature a charity at the end of a post. I am not affiliated to them. I just like the work they are doing and since I find that most good, voluntary work goes unsung, every now and again I shout out for them.
About Alexandra Cuncev
I’m the writer behind this blog. I live in London, but I am originally from Romania, in Central-Eastern Europe. I have lived in Britain a long time, and yet a lot of my general motivation to support good causes is drawn from having briefly lived in a dictatorship and seeing first-hand the impact of lack and poverty on people. In Britain, I work in the charity sector – more specifically, housing and homelessness. This remains a cause very close to my heart.
Here are some more facts about me:
I work part-time for a homelessness charity. I manage their Media and Communications and I love it. Beforehand, I did policy work for them and before that, I worked frontline, with the homeless clients. In my present role, I basically celebrate, through all means I can, the charity’s amazing work.
I have another, even more part-time life, as a narrative researcher, and a narrative research methods tutor. This means I am a storyteller by trade. But about this, more here.
I am a mother of daughters. Everyone tells me this is a joy during the early years and a challenge when they are teenagers. I’m focusing on the joy.
I love to cook and listen to the radio. I cannot do one without the other.
I love to cook. I don’t know how to bake. I love pairing odd ingredients and making them work, like chocolate and beans. I love cinnamon in curries.
I am Romanian. My husband is Polish. We live in England. I am not sure what our children are. They call dumplings ‘pierogi’, doll is ‘papusa’ and when they are hungry, they are ‘famished’.
I once played the piano.
Last but not least: I have a PhD in Sociology. I wrote about homeless people, in a very personalised (I like to think) way: I listened to the stories of their lives (this is known as narrative research) and wrote up conclusions about homelessness experiences in Britain. I did this while pregnant and with small children, so every now and again I feel incredibly proud!
I wrote more about storytelling here: SAGE Researching Social Methods and here: METHODSPACE. And of course here.
I hope you enjoy reading my stories. Catch up on my news here.
Please note:
All content on this site protected by copyright and cannot be used without permission. If you would like to feature any of my stories, photos or writing on your site, please contact me.
Most stories are written by me. The stories provided by others are edited with full consent. In some cases names have been changed as requested.
My opinions are my own and are based on my personal experiences.
Would you like to send me a story that you would like featured on this site? Do so here.