By Mark Slessenger | Operations Director
Dear Friends,
Through all our years working in prisons we have found three things that are required to give every young person incarcerated a platform for success. Firstly on release they need a safe environment to reintegrate, they need a job or training to keep them occupied and encouraged and they need a loving community to support them through their ups and downs. If you remove one of these three vital components it can often lead to young men reoffending and going back to prison. At The Message we are determined to give every young person in prison we work with the best possible platform to succeed.
Our main goal for 2016 was to launch a halfway home for the young men we work with in MEP. This was a massive step of faith for us as we had no idea how we were going to do this and provide a home for young men we work with. However, in October we launched our first ever home in partnership with The City Mission! This is a massive step for us but the home is already providing accomodation for three young men out of prison and we can accomodate up to six. It has already made a massive difference in the lives of the young men placed in the home. We still need support for the home as we need to cover food and operating costs but we believe this is a step of faith that is necessary and to provide adequate care for our young men.
Addiitonally we have had quite a few of our MEP students released. Steve, Siseko, Jerome, Simcilile and Wesley have all been released. All are presently placed at The Message Trust and we are working on employment opportunities for each one of them. Siseko is working on marketing for The Message, Steve will be implementing his gang awarness business concept developled in prison and Jerome and Simcilile are currently volunteering with us.
Another highlight has been the placement into an external company of our first two MEP graduates. We have partnered with a company called Top Floor that has been willing to employ our graduates. We placed Wesley and Farrol and although it was difficult to let them go it has been a blessing to see them released into this area of growth and opportunity.
Thank you for all your support and prayers and if you would like to know more about MEP and the Halfway Home please do contact us.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
