Our mission is to provide an accessible and consolidated database of information for ex-convicts that can help them convert street skills into professional skills. We aim to teach and train these individuals to begin to adapt the mentality of an entrepreneur so they can find employment and better job opportunities. We will also provide a forum for organic leaning and community building as well as
a social media functionality so we can allow individuals to build and post their projects with the intention of further development and collaboration. The focus of this initiative is entrepreneurship. We specifically chose this approach because it offers a unique perspective on the challenging process of employment. Many criminal justice clients find themselves committed to change and want to create a better life for themselves as well as their loved ones around them. But society severely limits these individuals because of their criminal records. Without work its impossible to support oneself and subsequently many of these people regress back to the choices that led them to prison in the first place. Entrepreneurship can offer a “clean slate”. (A great idea has no color, no history, and no stigmas put up against it.) Developing an entrepreneurial mentality is quite simple; it is the process of training individuals to be sensitive and aware of problems and frame them as challenges and then constantly brainstorm innovative solutions to better solve these issues. Once we have developed this skill of idea creation, the next step is building that idea into a concrete project. From the success or failure of this project, future opportunities emerge. This is why we chose entrepreneurship rather then traditional employment. If people are entirely focused on finding work they may never realize that they can have a bigger impact then ever imagined and society can’t restrict them to actualizing this potential.
