A woman in a black business suit speaking to three men in orange prison uniforms, seated at a table in a classroom with a whiteboard in the background.

PRISON PROGRAMS

Another Way To Go Program

Program Overview: A comprehensive six-month in-prison leadership and personal transformation initiative that teaches incarcerated individuals to take accountability, reframe their past experiences, and design positive community projects within their facilities.

Our programs transform the way participants see their lives, and what is possible for them. AWTG Program transforms the way participants think and view their lives.

AWTG is based on the notion of the tabula rasa, or blank slate, which states that all humans are born a blank slate, and it is our experiences, thoughts, history etc – our past – that gives us our personality and our view of life. We cannot change our past, but we can change the way we interpret it.

Participants learn to put past interpretations aside, which frees them from the chains of their past, and allows for a whole new life, based on what they really care about, not what they ended up with.

Once participants create a new context for living their lives while in prison and for when they are released they identify something that is missing in prison for themselves and other inmates, such as respect, partnership, and teamwork, and then design a project that will bring this attribute into their environment.

Projects have included:

  • Teaching others to read

  • Teaching job interview skills

  • Re-uniting families

  • Changing laws on incarceration

Some projects last a few months while others are so well received and needed that they last many years.

Get Involved

“I’ve changed the way I judge people and I’ve stopped blaming others. I can accept others that I use to stay away from, because of many reasons. The word willing changed all bad thoughts.”
- Thomas