Cuentos de Confianza was co-founded by Rachel Bloom-Pojar, Maria Barker, and Danielle Koepke in partnership with the CCmáS promotores de salud at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin (PPWI). It developed with the support of PPWI, a Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society grant, UW-Milwaukee’s (UWM) Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Office of Undergraduate Research, and the first two cohorts of writers.

What began as a virtual writing class for promotores de salud developed into a bilingual website and set of stories that could be integrated into community programming to facilitate conversations about a range of topics related to reproductive justice: maternal mental health, immigration, parenting, infertility, domestic violence, gender roles, and more. The 13 stories that are currently featured on the Cuentos website have been used in programming across Wisconsin, Puerto Rico, and Peru. We hosted graduation ceremonies for the writers in 2022 in Milwaukee and 2024 in Madison to celebrate the launch of each cohort’s set of stories.

The project was a crucial partnership that helped Rachel identify a desire to work more directly with storytelling and community-engaged programs outside of academia. So when she left her faculty position at UWM in 2024, she knew Cuentos would be a key part of her future work but that it might evolve over time. The project continues on as a partnership between Confianza Collective and PPWI’s CCmáS program with key leadership and guidance from the Cuentos Advisors, Elida Rebolledo and Rocio Cornejo, who were writers for Cuentos in the first and second cohort. The Confianza Collective team will continue to manage the Cuentos website and facilitate writing workshops as CCmáS promotores continue to lead innovative strategies for integrating the stories in their community programming.

Stay tuned for more information on this project or reach out if your health promoter program has an interest in hosting a series of Cuentos writing workshops.