This week I have been working a lot on our Life Stories event at the Gateway Film Center, and I want to use this blog post to talk about the details of the project. The Life Stories project features two groups of women serving life or long sentences at the Ohio Reformatory for Women: the storytellers who speak on their journeys and the media crew who capture the intimate stories of their incarcerated sisters. The purpose of this showing is to help promote understanding and connection between the general population and the often misunderstood world incarcerated people live in. 

The actual content of the project took place before I arrived at WAV, so my role has been working on a marketing and communications plan for this premiere event, where we are collaborating with an arts administration group from Otterbein University. One of the best parts about this project for me has been all the people involved that I get to work with. The Otterbein group and WAV staff meet weekly to plan the event itself, and this week I also got to meet with a former WAV staff member to talk about our communication plan. At this meeting, we began discussing how this event ties into WAVs goals as a whole, and it really got me thinking more about the big picture.

On the call, we found one common thread between all WAVs workshops and programs, which was that they are a way to create safe spaces for people, no matter the population. I saw this firsthand with the kids at the summer program, and it was also incredibly relevant for the incarcerated women involved in the Life Stories documentary. Beyond thinking about the big picture of WAV, I was also inspired to think about the big picture of what I want to do in my career, and it came back to those safe spaces. Every organization I have been a part of, whether it has been my scholars group at Ohio State, my job at the information desk, or the positions at nonprofit internships I have held, I have always wanted to contribute to creating a positive space for the people around me. At WAV this is a key part of their mission, but no matter where I go next I want to make that a priority for me.