2024 Gala: You're invited!
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2024 Gala: You're invited! 〰️
Empowering
Safer Communities
We help people emerge from prison with new communication and relational skills, retooled for successful reentry into society.
Breaking Ground. In the prison system.
Realness Project is the first organization to bring the power of Authentic Relating Trainings to hundreds of people living behind bars.
REAL
The System is Broken
The Correctional system is failing to correct behavior and that means more crime on our streets. More families in distress. More unnecessary heartbreak and financial cost.
2.2 Million
PEOPLE IN PRISON & JAILS
The U.S. is the world leader in incarceration, with 2.2 million people behind bars — a 500% increase over the last 40 years.
83%
ARRESTED AFTER RELEASE
More than 4 out of 5 prisoners are arrested within 9 years of their release — half of those are arrested within the first year.
“I am a former gang member. I have always struggled to connect with people on a positive, uplifting level.
This course has not only made my dream of being a force for change a real possibility but it has built an even greater drive to go out and form real connections.
This will be a part of my life forever. After 10 years of incarceration I found a way to really be me.”
~ Realness Project Graduate, resident CDOC
A Path to Freedom
Every day at Realness Project, we encounter incarcerated people who not only who have the capacity to learn skills that will help them reintegrate into society and become productive, law abiding, tax paying citizens, but also are hungry for this kind of transformation.
Realness Project programs are designed to empower participants to communicate with confidence, handle conflict with grace, and develop healthy, sustainable relationships with their partners, children, parents, bosses, coworkers, and most importantly, themselves.
“This course has a unique way of taking even the most hardened and closed off people and assisting them in the paradigm shift that the CDOC is moving towards. Having witnessed both staff and offenders taking this course, I feel encouraged and inspired that the system can change.”
~ Jacquelynne Witte, 10-Year Veteran Pre-Release | Community Programs Specialist III for the Division of Adult Parole in the CDOC, including Close Custody and Gang units
Want a quick lowdown on Realness Project? Listen to this…
Get inspired by this half-hour interview of Laurie Lazar, Executive Director of The Realness Project.
Laurie describes the power that human connection is having on incarcerated people and the ripple effect that is created in the world.
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