Workshop for women in jail receives grant

BANGOR – Maine Inside-Out, an arts and social justice organization association based in Portland, recently received a $6,000 grant from the Maine Community Foundation to support a theater workshop for incarcerated women.

Founded in 2007 by three Maine women with backgrounds in social work, counseling, education, creative writing, and the performing and visual arts, Maine Inside-Out collaborates with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people to develop meaningful creative work, share work with the community, and facilitate dialogue in order to initiate social change. Its approach combines prevention, intervention and after-care strategies to provide a continuous network of arts programming within correctional facilities as well as programs based in the community.

Maine Inside-Out artists Margot Fine, Chiara Liberatore and Tessy Seward will lead five weeks of workshop sessions with women at the Maine State Department of Corrections’ Women’s Reentry Center in Bangor beginning in mid-September. The workshop begins Friday, Sept. 19, and will conclude with a free performance for the public at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17, at the University of Maine Pavilion Theater in Orono.

For more information visit www.maineinsideout.org or call 907-6196. For information about the Maine Community Foundation, visit www.mainect.org or call 877-700-6800.