Author: Pati Hernandez

Almost all Telling My Story participants have had a hand in creating Talking Walls that serve as the backdrop to each performance. Similar to a graffiti wall, the Talking Wall allows for expression of words, thoughts, and ideas that help participants communicate their experiences.

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.

On December 15th I will be traveling to Chile to reproduce the Telling My Story program there for the first time. I will be implementing the program at a women’s prison in Santiago. My cousin and close friend has been helping to organize this project in Santiago, and I am so impressed and moved by all the support I have received.

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.

I am just back from a very exciting and productive winter reproducing Telling My Story in Puerto Rico. I spent eight weeks at Guayama 945, a men’s correctional facility in the south of the island. During the project I worked with 16 inmates and 11 volunteers from the outside.

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.