USA Projects

In juvenile halls throughout California a living oral history project is taking shape based on the testimonial writings, art, and readings by the youngest members of America's prison system.

With your help, "If These Walls Could Talk" will allow the boys and girls on the Inside to tell you, and show you, in their own words and pictures through their own website who they really are, and who they hope to be.

Your support will provide funds for the kids' writing and artwork, for workshop assistants and materials, the recording and mixing of their performance readings, the software and graphics for their website, and a stipend for youth assisting in the design and maintenance of their own website.

While in Juvenile Hall, detained and incarcerated youth are invited to participate in weekly writing and conversation workshops. Led by local writers and teachers, these sessions are designed to help the youth dig deep and seek insights, through writing and drawing, into childhoods and teen years so often defeated by aspects of the lives they have lived so far.

Their poems, stories and artwork draw on deeply personal narratives and testimonials to regret, remorse, hopes, and resolve. They choose which readings and art to showcase on their own website "hole-in-the-wall" portal, which helps them acquire computer literacy and web design skills as they learn how to feature their work. In this way, these girls and boys can live out loud in a world that often forgets them.

Your sponsorship helps our youth find power in the pencil, and a refuge in writing. Thank you for helping them find a window on the world through their voice and art!