The Power of a Woman's Story

There is something powerful and beautiful about a well-told story. Some of my favorite memories as a little girl were listening to the stories of my grandmothers, aunts, and mom. What experiences formed and shaped them, how they became the women they are today; questions like these always left me wanting to learn more from and about the women I most admire and looked up to in my own life.
Enter the documentary The Girl Inside.
This new mini documentary gives viewers a heart-wrenching and heart-warming glimpse into the lives of a group of women awaiting sentencing at Cook County Jail in Chicago, the largest single-site jail in the United States. Through these women's stories, filmmaker Kate Bryan, in partnership with production company BEHOLD, expands on a theme of Bryan's 1 Girl Revolution podcasts: the truth that every can make a difference with her life.
Sadly, the voices of incarcerated women are often overlooked or not considered as valuable or important. With the numbers of incarcerated skyrocketing in the United States - the population of incarcerated women has increased by more than 700 percent over the past 40 years - there is a desperate need to educate, empower, and help women heal in the prison system.
The documentary follows incarcerated women as they participate in a life-changing academic course taught by Dr. Laura Biagi, an interdisciplinary voice artist and teacher whose work focuses on teaching others to use their voice for personal and social change. Through "Storytelling as a Healign Art" class, the students learned about the power of every person's voice and then Dr. Biagi led the women through a series of storytelling exercises and vocal warmups.
The culmination of the course and documentary comes when Dr. Biagi gives the women a writing prompt, "I am your voice, and this is what I want you to know . . ."
The vulnerability, hope, and empowerment these women share by their own voices and stories is transformative and beautiful to behold.

Read the rest over at Verily . . .