NEW
Library Project
Patricia
Andres
NJ State Prison, Trenton, NJ.
Male inmates in maximum-security facility.
Bo
Robinson Education &Training Center, Trenton, NJ. Male inmates
in minimum-security facility.
Rescue Mission, Trenton, NJ.
Residents of a homeless shelter for men recovering from substance abuse.
Quote: "Stories
are important. It is, after all, in the narrative dimension that we create
the self, the character, who journeys in the world. Yet always underlying
(and sometimes breaking through) is that wordless, nameless dimension that
I think Emily Dickinson refers to when she writes: 'Hope is the thing with
feathers / That perches in the soul, / And sings the tune without the
words, And never stops at all.' In literature we find language
pouring out from, even straining to name that source. Reflecting and
sharing with people on this level brings tremendous joy, energy,
possibility."
Curt
Broadway
Mercer House, Ewing,
NJ. Residential home for youth in trouble.
NJ State Prison, Trenton,
NJ. Male inmates in maximum-security facility.
Trenton Daylight
Twilight, Trenton, NJ. Young men and women in high school for
non-traditional and at-risk students.
Scott
Feifer
Project Forward Leap,
Lancaster, PA. Parents and children in special enrichment project.
Domestic Violence Services of Lancaster, PA (DVSLC), Bridge Housing
Program. Female residents of county-sponsored domestic violence
recovery program.
Quote: “I
love that People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos allows us to use the
stories we read and those we’ve lived in order to see our lives with
greater clarity and meaning, to gain confidence in lifting our voices and
sharing our ideas, to learn from our lived experiences, and to listen
to and learn from one another. I love that each participant brings
new insights and perspectives to our
discussions. No story ever feels fixed or finished, and so we
realize that neither must we.”
Lesley
Fredericks
Kirkbride Center, Philadelphia, PA.
Men and women recovering from substance abuse in residential treatment
facility.
Quote: "No one can say
for sure what meaning an individual or group will pull out of a story.
Inevitably, though, what happens is informed by -- and informs -- each
person's experiences. To me, what gives People & Stories / Gente
y Cuentos its strength is this ability to connect literature with life and
make each richer."
Jay
Gallagher
Daytop Village,
Mendham, NJ. Teenagers involved with substance abuse in
rehabilitative residential school.
Mountainview Youth Correctional Facility, Dept of Corrections (DOC), Annandale, NJ.
Male inmates under age 21.
Ken
Hart
Mountainview
Youth Correctional Facility, Dept of Corrections (DOC), Annandale, NJ.
Male inmates, under age 21.
Chris
Hill
Womanspace, Philadelphia,
PA. Women in residential recovery.
My Brother's Keeper, Camden,
NJ. Adult males in residential, substance abuse recovery program.
Quote: "Every People & Stories session finds me pleasantly
surprised in some new, often profound way. Personal anecdotes
combine with literary texts to form an hour and a half that alternately
makes me laugh out loud and cry inside. That I receive this gift
from people who all too often are shunned by society is my true
reward. Recently, when I expressed the hope that I had imparted my
own real love of reading to the group, one of the participants responded,
'Chris, that's the easy part of what you've done. You and your
stories make us feel like regular folk. That's the real deal.'
What more could I or People & Stories ask?"
Anndee
Hochman
Interim
House, Philadelphia, PA. Women residents in drug
rehabilitation program.
Covenant House,
Philadelphia, PA. Young men and women, ages 18-21, in temporary
housing.
Quote: "After
discussing stories by Langston Hughes, Toni Cade Bambara and Raymond Carver
with women who are former substance abusers, I am ever more convinced that
literature WORKS-that is, it engages our senses, yanks our hearts,
challenges our assumptions and sweeps a path for change. When we explore a
story together, gently and persistently nudging deep into the text and our
responses to it, we cannot help but be enlarged."
Gina
Kolata
Mercer County Detention Center, SIP
program (State Incentive Program), Ewing.
NJ.
Day program for youth with suspended sentences.
John
Parkes
Trenton Daylight
Twilight, Trenton, NJ. Young men and women in high school for
non-traditional and at-risk students.
Martin House Learning Center, Trenton, NJ. Adult Basic
Education (pre-GED) students.
Bo
Robinson Education &Training Center, Trenton, NJ. Male inmates
in minimum-security facility.
Quote: "The examination of diversity through short stories can
enable participants and coordinators to have different perspectives on
their own lives. G.I. Gurdjieff said, 'The only way to get out of prison
is to first realize you are in prison.' People & Stories / Gente
y Cuentos programs often take place with people who do recognize that
their physical freedom is compromised. However, the stories and
discussions provide opportunities to examine more subtle prisons such as
thought systems, attitudes, and preconceived notions regardless of the
physical, economic, or emotional prison one is in."
Mary Reath
Operation
Fatherhood, Trenton, NJ. Adult Basic Education (pre-GED)
students.
Doretha Riley
Trenton Daylight
Twilight, Trenton, NJ. Young men and women in high school for
non-traditional and at-risk students.
Youth Corp., Trenton, NJ. At-risk youth in vocational and
academic program.
Katia
Salomon
Fleury-Mérogis Prison
("Gens et Récits"), Paris,
France. Male inmates, ages 25-68.
Pat Steenland
A Friendly Place,
Oakland, CA. Residents of drop-in shelter for the homeless.
Jean
Cappello
Tepayac, New York.
Mexican immigrants participating in learning center program .
Alma Concepción
Puerto
Rican Association for Human Development, Perth Amboy, NJ.
Grassroots Latinos.
El Centro de
Recursos (Catholic Charities), Trenton, NJ. Spanish-speaking,
Adult Basic Education
students.
Quote: "I
have been working as coordinator for Gente y Cuentos, the Spanish
component of People and Stories, since 1991. I have always felt that
my 'voice' in the GyC program is tied to grassroots projects where there
have been enthusiastic and juicy discussions because of the great number
of countries represented. In my last session, there were
participants from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia,
Perú,
Bolivia and Spain. I hope the Gente y Cuentos component continues to
strengthen."
Angelica
Mariani
Princeton Public
Library, Princeton, NJ. Grassroots Latinos.
Lawrence
McCarty
The Light House,
Philadelphia, PA. Spanish-speaking, Adult Basic Education (ABE) students.
Project H.O.M.E.,
Philadelphia, PA. Adult Basic Education (ABE) students in program for
the formerly homeless (a
People & Stories program).
Quote:
"As
we gather together to read and discuss stories with open minds to the
literary experience, we discover that each session becomes a creative act
in itself. Key to our process is listening with respect, hearing the
other's point of view and trusting our own voice.
We learn to see ourselves in the text and in the life experiences of
others from different cultures. The clarity, contrasts and beauty that we
discover in imaginative writers spark our own imagination with a spirit of
wonder as we share our reflections on the infinite variety of life."
Marcy
Schwartz
Garden
State Youth Correctional Facility, Yardville, NJ. Spanish-speaking, male
inmates.
El
Centro de Recursos (Catholic Charities), Trenton, NJ. Spanish-speaking,
Adult Basic Education
students.
Quote: "Stories
are for everyone, and everyone has stories. I treasure my involvement
with People and Stories/Gente y Cuentos because it truly democratizes
literature and makes it a shared community experience. Beyond literacy
and pedagogy, stories provide the pathways to learning about ourselves and
each other, and to appreciating the beauty of language. Writers have
no monopoly on linguistic beauty; the participants' interventions are as
poetic and powerful, if not more, than the stories that generate them."
Nury Vicens
Norris Square Senior
Citizens Center, Philadelphia, PA. Senior Latinos.
“I have met some amazing people during my three
years in the program. I like the people; I like the connection that
happens between us all. We touch not only poetics in the text, but through
the relationship that evolves between us, we all grow and learn in
unexpected ways. Last year I had a group of women from the Norris
Square neighborhood project. We met in the kitchen where they also did
sewing and knitting, etc. Not only did we share stories, but I also ended
up eating lunch cooked by them (like good ‘comadres’). To quote Scott
Peck, I find my work with Gente y Cuentos to be ‘the work of
attention—when we attend to someone, we are caring for that person; it
is a form of love.’ “
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