Life Stories for Adults Living with HIV/AIDS

Life Stories for People Living with HIV/AIDS is a six-week course that incorporates reminiscence therapy, storytelling techniques, and improvisational exercises to enableparticipants to create original vignettes, scenes and monologues based on their own life experiences. The class culminates in a public performance for peers and others in the community.   

Originally piloted in 2002 with the Whitman Walker Clinic, Life Stories is now offered in partnership with Food and Friends, the area’s largest meals and service provider for people living with HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses. The project, which includes Food and Friends clients and the volunteers who serve them, culminates in a video of real-life stories and a live performance at the Food and Friends location in Southeast Washington.

Our collaboration with Food and Friends has produced both beautiful art and powerful connections between the participants.

According to a Food and Friends Program Director, “The Life Stories program wonderfully bridged the remarkable stories and talents of our clients with the equally remarkable stories and talents of our volunteers.  The end result was a multi-layered enrichment experience that affected everyone deeply.”

Among the benefits cited by staff and participants were: increased awareness of creative potential, decreased sense of isolation as a result of being part of an artistic ensemble, improved verbal communication skills, appreciation for “being heard,” and personal satisfaction gained from revisiting positive past experiences.  One client stated, “I’ve been living with this disease for 17 years and I was starting to shut myself off.  Thank you for opening a window for me.”

The Theatre Lab is honored to have received a grant from the Johnson and Johnson Society for Arts in Healthcare Initiative to expand the program in 2007, developing a Life Stories project that will serve people living with HIV/AIDS and other life threatening illnesses, as well as their caregivers and loved ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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