2022 Here We Come: New Projects, Partnerships, Board Members and More!
Hi friends,
"This year, we are working towards a Fall opening of MIO’s first Community Site in downtown Lewiston where we hope to welcome YOU to the site for workshops, performances, presentations, and more. We are launching really exciting partnerships and projects this year. Check out the spotlights in this newsletter to learn about our pilot theater program at Lewiston Middle School and our continuing work with artists inside Maine correctional facilities, and stay tuned for more project announcements!
We are so excited to welcome you into our new home in Lewiston, and in the meantime we'd love to connect with you. MIO is a laboratory for social transformation and you are part of it. Paolo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed and an inspiration for MIO, writes “at the point of encounter… there are only people who are attempting, together, to learn more than they know now.”
The official decal is up at MIO's Community Site at
168 Lisbon St. in Lewiston!
Writing on the Walls
“Writing on the Walls” is a new segment in our communications that will feature writing, music, and art by incarcerated MIO artists. In this first edition, Alex Lewis writes about staying connected from a place of exile.
Alex Lewis is a writer and visual artist. He has been a member of MIO since 2019. He is currently incarcerated at Androscoggin County Jail. If you would like to respond to Alex’s writing, please email your response to maineinsideout@gmail.com or write him at Androscoggin County Jail, 40 Pleasant St. in Auburn, ME 04210.
Project Spotlight:
Lewiston Middle School
Theater Workshops!
Facilitators Darryl Shepherd Jr., Tyler Jackson, and Adan Abdi (left to right) rehearse a scene to share with Lewiston Middle School students.
Starting this month, MIO will partner with Lewiston Middle School and Lewiston Public Schools to build a strong community through theater workshops and performances. This project marks critical milestones for MIO and our vision of community change.
MIO is thrilled to begin programming in schools. Middle school is a critical moment for young people. For years, MIO members have spoken out about the impact of system involvement in middle school on youth, families, and communities. This project will create a format for students to initiate community change through collaborative theater during these crucial years. We hope this program in Lewiston can be a model for programming in schools across the state.
The co-facilitators for this project are former MIO participants and performers. Collectively, this team has created 8 original MIO plays and performed hundreds of times throughout the state and nationally. Now, as staff members, they will be facilitating the play creation and performance process with middle school students while acting as community leaders and building a community network of peer support.
Stay tuned for regular updates on our social media channels!
Introducing New Board Members!
Thank you so much to everyone who reached out with interest in supporting MIO as a board member. This Fall, MIO welcomed 4 new members to MIO’s Board Circle. Board circle members embrace MIO’s purpose and values by actively contributing their capacity and skills across the organization as part of MIO's holacratic structure. We are thrilled to welcome Dania Bowie, Elaine Charatte, Jonah Fertig-Burd, and Mx. Kalisto Zenda Nanen!
Dania Bowie (she/they) Filipino-American, First Generation; Dania is the Development and Communications Coordinator at the Maine Women’s Lobby, where they focus on bringing community-centric fundraising and accessible communications to advocacy and civic education. Dania supports work that makes Maine a safer place for EVERYONE to heal and thrive through facilitating conversations about where resources go or don’t go in communities and why.
Elaine Charette spent nearly two decades as a paralegal, ten of which was spent working with one of Maine’s most aggressive and devoted CJA criminal defense attorneys, fighting for the rights of dozens of minorities caught in the unfair and imbalanced Federal criminal justice system. Elaine currently works for the Portland Housing Authority and, having herself grown up in poverty, she is passionate about creating safe, affordable and sustainable housing communities that residents can be proud of.
Jonah Fertig-Burd is a Community Partner for Food Systems at the Elmina B Sewall Foundation in Maine on Wabanaki Territory. Over the past 20 years, Jonah has built deep, collaborative relationships; developed new nonprofits, cooperative businesses, and collaboratives; worked in restaurants, food pantries, and farms; advocated for food and farm policies; and helped to grow racial equity in our food system.
Mx. Kalisto Zenda Nanen, Board Member at Large is new to our board. Native to Chicago, IL by way of Memphis, TN; Missoula, MT, and Seattle, WA. Kalisto lives in Maine's Aroostook County with their husband and dog and a soon-to-be first-born child. Kalisto is a Consulting Assistant for Epiphanies of Equity LLC a Disability Justice and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion group out of the Pacific Northwest, an Environmental Science & Sustainability Masters Student at Unity College in Maine, a researcher, and a death guide.
Meet MIO’s staff team and community artists.