We are working as an organization to mount a traveling exhibit of Talking Walls culled from various performances. This work will help us continue bridging the gap between those living behind social walls and those in the mainstream of community life. The exhibit would be a collaboration with the Vermont Folklife Center.

I miss that voice and I miss those listeners that really wanted to hear me, all of me, because they understood and/or wanted to learn. I think that having that sense of empowerment after the program is over could help those reintegrate into society and help them continue to use this voice that the program has given them.

My idea for this would be to have a part of Telling My Story’s web site dedicated to continuing to hear those voices. A place where past members and those associated with the program could share with others. A place to share stories of fiction or truth, poems, or even testimonials. I don’t know the exact set-up of web sites or blogs but I know the voice I found in the program, and those I heard, should have a place where they feel safe to keep talking. Feeling wanted and safe, in terms of emotional safety, I think is a key to keep us talking.

- Lindsey

I am very excited and thankful to be able to keep reproducing the program in other places.  I don’t think I have the technique down yet, but if I keep doing it, I believe something will happen. I am also very thankful for this opportunity to go back to my country of origin and be able to share the work with my friends and family from Chile after so long. It feels like closing a cycle.

We’ll see where the whole experience will take us. So, with much excitement and full of energy, I am getting ready to go and work, hoping to be able to establish something solid there.

• Incorporated as a nonprofit with federal tax exempt status
• Established a dedicated and talented board of directors
• Continued to develop Dartmouth College’s first community based service learning course
• Formed an ongoing partnership with the Valley Vista Rehabilitation Center in Bradford, Vermont
• Reproduced Telling My Story outside of New England for the first time in a men’s prison in Puerto Rico

The foundation of Telling My Story was laid in 1995, when Pati began using theater to teach literacy to Latin American women at a settlement house in New York’s Lower East Side. Over the years, Pati has carefully honed the program to empower individuals behind social walls to find their voice. Through theater, participants gain both the tools to improve their own lives and the agency to teach others by sharing their personal experience.

In 2009, nearly 15 years since the first project, Telling My Story is poised to dramatically strengthen and expand its programming and impact. We need your support to make this happen!  In the coming months, Pati will once again co-teach a community based service-learning course with Dartmouth College at Valley Vista. With your help, we will be able to bring the Telling My Story program back to a correctional facility in Northern Vermont. We currently have more sites that would like to host the program than we have time or funding.

In order to continue to build upon this momentum, we must secure adequate financial resources to sustain the programs. Your generosity is needed to make this work continue. Ironically, the very same partnerships that have led to the intense demand for Pati’s time and expertise also present a fundraising dilemma. Potential funders, individuals, and foundations hear about Telling My Story’s partnerships with Dartmouth and Valley Vista and assume that they are able to entirely fund the work — but this is not the case. Although some of the partners do pay part of the program costs, these funds do not cover the entire cost of any one project, nor are they adequate to support infrastructure necessary to sustain the work.

In the last 12 months, Telling My Story has brought together more than 30 individuals behind social walls with more than 30 community members to develop shows in three different venues. Between one and two hundred people, from the Northeast Kingdom, to the Upper Valley, to Puerto Rico, participated in the resulting social reflection as audience members. Last fall Telling My Story began a partnership with a women’s rehabilitation center in Bradford, Vermont. Women at Valley Vista are short-term residents; many leave the facility before the program is complete. This past winter, Pati took the program to a medium/minimum security correctional facility in Puerto Rico. The prisoners there are men serving long sentences. Despite these differences, the Telling My Story program has been very well received in both environments, in fact, both would like to make the program part of their ongoing operations. This is a testament to both the flexibility of the program and the need for such a space for social reflection.

In order to make this possible, and to expand programming to local community organizations, we need your financial support.

“I am excited to give myself this time to focus on just my writings, and also to meet with people doing works that relate to my work,” Pati said.  “When I was learning about their work, I felt hopeful.” Hopefully, the retreat will also give her a chance to catch her breath and reflect on a very busy year of
programs!

But once we started talking and introducing ourselves, we noticed links across the gap that divided us. Some people said they didn’t like authority, and some people defiantly stated that they didn’t like onions. We shared the human experience of liking and disliking, and we even shared some of the same objects of affection and disgust. The exercise became about a shared relationship instead of solely a shared object. A bridge began to form between groups whose material conditions could be immediately recognized by who had to ask to use the bathroom and who could just go.

Over eight weeks we turned these shared relationships back into a shared object, a shared moment in which we put on the performance on which we collaborated. The project centered on the women at Valley Vista, but the students learned as much and grew as much as the women. At the final
performances, participants’ voices, including those who were not even at the performance, spoke as one voice, not of a homogenous life experience but of a heterogeneous community.

— Alex, Student Participant

One of the most important things that I saw Telling My Story accomplish was to bridge the gap and empower our future decision makers with the knowledge of the system by putting faces on those that are in the system who are motivated to change. The students who participated in the program with Pati are at an advantage because they are exposed to the other side of the fence, which allows them to make a connection with the reality rather than the stigma and stereotypes.

I saw many people change because of the program after being struck with the hope of new life after prison. I can certainly say that the program has given me much more than I have given it, but hope to reverse this in the coming future as I become part of the fabric that keeps the program running.

— Robin, Inmate Participant

The show was called Tell Me Your Story, and it was full of bright energy, great humor, and even better natural actors. Once again I was impressed with the dedication and commitment the entire group of participants had to the program. Inmates that participated started from the very beginning, and they all made it to the end of the project.

What struck me the most was that at least 75% of the inmates working with me were serving life in prison. It was a sad reality that made me commit to working with them every January and February. I am excited about it and hopeful that we can establish an ongoing program.