Our Notebook - Walls to bridges

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WALLS TO BRIDGES BC COLLECTIVE ART PIECE

Photos

2018 W2B Instructor Training
Tableau, W2B 2018 Instructor Training
Community Collective Facilitating at the 2018 W2B Instructor Training
W2B 2018 Instructor Training at Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University
Laura Drumming, W2B 2018 Instructor Training
2018 W2B Instructor Training at Grand Valley Institution for Women
W2B 2018 Instructor Training
2018 W2B Instructor Training at Grand Valley Institution for Women
Shoshana, Larry and Denise, W2B 2018 Instructor Training
Tiina's Graduation, MSW, Wilfrid Laurier University
Lorraine and Denise speaking at University of Toronto
W2B Community Collective at Stride Symposium: Women in Prison Building Community (2017) held by Community Justice Initiatives (Kitchener, ON)
W2B presenting at Social Work Education in Europe Conference - Paris, 2017
Lorraine facilitating discussion at our Atkinson funded Decent Work Forum, Toronto, October 2015
Melissa and Randell at KW Counselling Services Workshop, Faculty of Social Work Professional Development Series, April 20, 2016
Denise and Julie with Howard Sapers, Correctional Investigator. At the Prevention, Prisons and Popcorn event hosted by the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council, Kitchener, September 10, 2015
Some of W2B collective members facilitating a Workshop at KW Counselling Services, Kitchener, April 20, 2015
Some of our founding collective members, planning the Equity Forum presentation in the Faculty of Social Work W2B office, September 2014.
Our group of trainees on one of the Facilitator Training Days at Grand Valley Institution for Women, June 2015.
Trainees facilitating an experiential activity during the 2015 Facilitator Training week in June 2015, Grand Valley Institution for Women.
Some Collective members during the 2015 Facilitator Instructor Training, June 2015, Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University
Facilitator Training week, Faculty of Social Work, Wifrid Laurier University, June 2015

Artwork

Drawing by Kaila

Writing

“RELEASED FROM PRISON?”:
Contributions from the Reimagining Re-entry Public Philosophy Group (Keywords: Punishment; Phenomenology; Home; Institutionalization; Education; Power)

“The degree of civilization in a society” said Dostoevsky, “can be judged by entering its prisons” – and, we might add “… by the process of re-entry, when incarcerated persons return.” In April 2023, we convened a group of post-incarcerated individuals and philosophy professors with experience of prison teaching to discuss imprisonment and re-entry. Our post-incarcerated participants had taken college-level classes while in prison, and often found it immensely valuable, sometime even life-saving. But why should philosophical reflection end simply because one had been released from the carceral “cave”? If anything, we suspected that the experience of “re-entry” would be so challenging, fraught with contradictions, and displacing after years of isolation from mainstream society and new technologies, that it might be very helpful to reflect together on the experience.

This research into displacement might also, we hoped, be philosophically illuminating in and of itself, and relevant to displaced others; refugees, those newly unemployed, people making big life changes, etc. Finally, our group aimed to set up a space of mutual support by gathering people who, by circumstance or court order, are often unable to connect with others who have also recently been released. Yet it is precisely those facing similar situations who might be most understanding and helpful.

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NYKI’S SPEECH

Pre-conceived notions. We are all guilty of harbouring them. Notions of what we think things are supposed to be. Things like prison, and education. Of what and who the student is, and what and who the convict is.

These notions have many aliases. They can be called assumptions. Generalizations. Stereotypes. Archetypes. Call them what we may they are dangerous, for they draw the deep lines, framing the societal and cultural confines which keep us all apart. Which keep us all oppressed.

Today, those lines are blurred. No, today they don’t exist. Today there is no distinction between stu-dent and convict and education and prison… because today, right here, we are all students. Learning. Evolving. Erasing. Celebrating.

The lesson? Invaluable.

Tearing free from our pre-conceived notions. Breaking down the walls. Building bridges, building communities. Linking education to rehabilitation. And growing internally all the while.

This is the lesson I have taken from the Walls to Bridges Program. And what a great program it is.

When I first applied, I suspected something very special was beginning here — but I had no idea. And how could anyone understand what a profound experience this is?

This class has a lot to offer. The voices of the class have a lot to offer.

Each person has given me inspiration. Given me the confidence to do things like this. And hope. The whole class — from its structure, to every person in it — has given me hope. From learning the content, to listening to all your stories and ideas, fear and dreams, I have realized that I am not as alone as I thought I was. That you are all strong and brave people, and that this world isn’t an easy place for any of us.

I have realized something else too. And it’s that we have got to hold onto programs like this. We have got to embrace them, as we most certainly have here. For this class has let us be strong and brave together. It has become a text from which we can reference as we go along our individual endeavours. A tool which we can use together to mend what is broken. And a beginning from which something awesome is blossoming.

And standing here today, I understand liberation too. Because today, I am free. Not in body, but in mind and heart. And that’s because of this class, because of all of you. Thank you. — Nyki