Braulio Tellez-Vilches participated as a trainee and filmmaker in Community Supported Film’s New Immigrant and Refugee Visions and produced the film Lift with Your Heart.

Braulio traveled a long hard journey to arrive at the US boarder from Cuba in 2017. He has a mountain of positive energy that serves him in all good and challenging situations. During the training he had the whole crew learning how to salsa dance by  our second day together!

In Cuba, Braulio was a professor and career diplomat. On arrival in Boston he lived for nearly a year in a shelter and worked at Logan airport.  Despite the struggle he volunteered with Catholic Charities and the Irish International Immigrant Center and set his goal on becoming a Spanish teacher in the Boston Public Schools.

After years of intensive English lessons and other studies to get certified to teach he made the grade and got a job teaching Spanish at Brockton High School.  He loves the work and the students love him.  He is a model of perseverance and never shies away from sharing with his students his story of being a new immigrant and homeless.  Brockton students are lucky to have Braulio and we are lucky to have shared the NIRV experience with Braulio.