This project will create educational, employment, and re-integration opportunities for ex-convicts and probationary youth. The project will establish a publishing house in a rural and economically depressed region of western Georgia. The publishing house will be staffed by ex-convicts, and the income generated will annually fund 20+ ex-convicts to enroll in technical courses to help them find employment.
After the mass amnesty in Georgia in 2013, 5,000+ convicts were released from detention facilities with no education or employment opportunities. Additionally, hundreds more probationers are released annually and return home to communities where they were labeled as "ex-convicts" and rejected from not only from jobs but even within their own homes. The social enterprise will focus on hiring only ex-convict youth to support their reintegration through life-long education and economic advancement.
The publishing house will provide training, reliable employment opportunities, and access to computer resources to ex-convicts and probationers. Also, the profits will fund scholarships for other ex-convicts. These probationary youth will receive technical training, internship opportunities, and employment help to support their families and deter them from returning to crime.
This project will educate annually 20+ ex-convicts and probationers granting them another route besides crime to support their families and rise out of poverty. These probationers will then add skilled labor to the workforce in this rural community. Finally, the publishing house will supply inexpensive books to 200+ children unable to buy such resources at market value.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).
