I’m FREE Females Reentering Empowering Each Other Goes to Canada

The week of September 22nd, 2014 Dr. Ranaya and Petrena flew to Canada to participate with the Association of Black Social Workers, Nova Scotia conference. While there they toured parts of Canada and visited a women’s prison. Noticeably different are the populations that are prisoners. The aboriginals folks seem to be the target of the prison system in Canada and there were maybe 9 women of African descent in the entire prison. Canadian women prison guards attended the I’m FREE  Transforming One Woman At A Time: Reintegration Support workshop and were so impressed that they asked permission from their warden to allow I’m FREE a visit to the women’s prison and to talk to some of the women in incarceration. A good thing about the women prisons in Canada is that they are gender responsive and consider the women and her role in the family. The women are offered support services versus a prison system. We at I’m FREE advocate to have this same mindset here in North America. You can view most of their presentation at the links below, there was some technical difficulties with sharing the files but you can still hear their voices during that time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwUrlVp_9qo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyiGtZc3_6M