The Dreaming Inside project, which is run by indigenous authors from the South Coast Writers Centre, has given Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inmates the ability to express themselves through written word. 

The program has produced a series of books consisting of the inmates’ work, Dreaming Inside: Voices from Junee Correctional Centre, and the fourth volume was launched at the Sydney Writer’s festival this year. 

“All the indications are that its having a very positive effect,” project mentor John Muk Muk Burke said. 

“Elsewhere it has been a bit tricky to get people to come and do something which is labeled ‘educational’. But that hasn’t been the case here at all.”

The book includes heart-felt poems and stories from inmates on a range of thought provoking topics including their families, life in prison and disassociation from culture and community.

Inmate Matt said it didn’t take long for the project to have a profound impact on his life, after being in and out of jail since his teenage years and arriving in Junee “scattered and coming off drugs”. 

“When you compare what I wrote in last year’s edition after I’d just got here and having been on drugs, to the things I wrote this year’s, it was just was so different.”

“I could tell straight away from what I’d written how different I’d become as a person throughout everything.” 

Matt said participating in the program filled him with pride and set a positive example for his children.

“I’ve got six kids and I can’t think of anything better to say to them than ‘your dad is a published author’,” he said. 

The program takes place in the jail’s cultural centre, a massive indoor space, its walls lined with inmate artwork. The centre is a positive cultural hub where inmates are encouraged to express themselves through writing, painting and singing. 

The Dreaming Inside project started with about nine participants when it began five years ago, but numbers have since increased to 35. 

The program was initially sparked by Illawarra poet Aunty Barbara Nicholson, after numerous visits to the jail inspired the book’s first volume in 2012.