Our goal is to educate those with bias thoughts, opinions and seek support regarding this population. We plan to help improve the quality of lives and provide services for currently and formerly incarcerated girls, women, transgender females, and their families in order to help eliminate female incarceration, discrimination, recidivism, and strengthen family cohesiveness/reunification.
The following projects listed will help move our mission forward:
- Youth Engagement Project-is to initiate support from employers to hire returning citizens by way of educating employers about the benefits of hiring returning citizens such beneficial programs to employer are the federal bonding and the tax incentive.
- C.O.I. M. Project is to establish an after-school and summer camp program where C.O.I.M. can gathered with other children who has a mother in prison or jail. Unlike other organizations that work with this demographic population, this project will provide transportation, meals, tutoring in an electronic-free zone environment, provide enrichment activities, on-site therapeutic counseling with a certified therapist, and cultural/artistic workshops.
- Family Reunification Project
- Step up Re-establishment Program- to raise funds to purchase housing for returning citizens to reside in for one year and at the same time provide employment opportunities for them by way of having them team up with small business developers, constructions and the trade industry who are willing to teach them on the job training while helping them rehab the house which they will reside in.
- Lifers Project
THE HARD TRUTH (DID YOU KNOW?)
- Approximately 85% of returning citizens are unemployed due to employers conducting criminal background checks and unwilling to give them a chance to prove themselves.
- Approximately 75% of girls, women, and transgender females are homeless.
- 1.5 million children in this country -approximately 2% of the minor children-have a parent serving a sentence in a state or federal prison.
- The nation’s growing prison and jail population has raised serious questions about the collateral effects of incarceration on children, families and communities. Whatever one’s views are about the appropriate role of incarceration in the criminal justice system, it is clear that imprisonment disrupts positive nurturing relationships between many parents particularly mothers and their children.
- As many as 64 million Americans have arrest records, many of which never resulted in a conviction. In many states there is nothing the individuals can do to prevent employers, housing authorities and others from obtaining their criminal records. These entities are believed to be using them to deny those opportunities such as employment, housing education, and other social services. The practice of keeping individual’s records available to the public, indefinitely perpetuates the stigma that exists for individuals with criminal histories who may have changed their lives because of maturity and education.
- More than half of this population are homeless and without family support. Once they are released from local, county jail or state prison, they have no money, clothes, food, personal identification, nor housing.
- However, they are expected to thrive in society without the basic needs and supplies that all human being should have and deserves.
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