PJP Home | The Pandemic Journaling Project

Usually, history is written only by the powerful. When the history of COVID-19 is written, let's make sure that doesn't happen.

The Pandemic Journaling Project, which launched in May 2020, has given ordinary people a place to chronicle and preserve their pandemic experiences.

In our first phase (2020-2022), more than 1,800 people in 55 countries joined our weekly online journaling platform, creating nearly 27,000 individual journal entries—for themselves, and for the history books. In our second phase (2022-2025), we continued recording the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our lives—but instead of weekly journaling, we reached out just 4 times a year.

Overall, the goal of PJP is a simple one: To make sure the COVID-19 experiences of everyday people like you and your family are not forgotten.

We invite you to browse our website and learn more about PJP and how we've begun to share insights and contributions to PJP journals with people around the world. You can learn, for instance, about our multimedia exhibitions (in 7 cities across 5 countries), research findings, and coverage in the U.S. and international media. If you're an educator, you may want to check out our Educator Resources page.

Once each week*, we sent participants an email or text message with a link. We asked a few questions, then it was participants' chance to talk about their experiences. Journal entries could take 3 forms:

Write it down.

Record yourself talking.

Take a photo of something important to you and write, or talk, about it.

We've saved all journal entries in the archive we've collaboratively built.

Before starting, we asked participants some basic questions: about you, your health and wellbeing, your views, and the impact of COVID-19 on you and those you care about. Each time we reached out, we asked a few more questions, right before participants started their journal entries. Participants' answers, together with their journal entries, are now preserved as a digital archive. They will help researchers learn how different people experience the pandemic, identify challenges in our world’s pandemic response, and work toward solutions.

People who journaled with PJP before May 2022 can obtain a copy of their journals by emailing us at pandemicjournalingproject@gmail.com.

*In our second phase: 4 times a year.

The Pandemic Journaling Project

Your story matters ...

Here’s how it works.