I’ve been in and out of trouble my whole life and started stealing clothes with friends from shopping centres when I was just 8 years old. By 12 I had graduated to selling drugs at school, but I was young and naive and either smoked away my profit or gave people credit they didn’t pay back.
By 14 – 15 though I had taught myself the business and it blew up bigger than I could have imagined. I was making more money than the teachers at school and spending everything I earned on clothes and drugs or on my friends and family.
Somehow I ended up selling class A drugs at 16. I was caught in possession and eventually ended up in jail. I got out but 10 months later I ended up back in again on related charges.
If it wasn’t for Spark Inside I probably would have ended up back in prison a third time.
I attended their workshops about 3 months before my release and it really made me more optimistic about life and what I could achieve. I learnt things about myself I didn’t know like my values and discovered strengths I didn’t realise I had.
The Spark Inside coaches really helped me to see that there is more to life than jail and that if I continue to reoffend then what I want out of life may not happen.
They helped me to see that I can rewrite my future and that I am the author of my own future. I’m aware it may not be easy, but it is possible.
Before I was really impulsive. I didn’t think before I did things or really think about who I was hanging around. Now I feel much more emotionally intelligent, I’ve got hope for the future and feel confident that I won’t reoffend.
I’d tell anyone in jail to go to the Hero’s Journey workshops. They don’t have to feel trapped by the system, they can do the things they want to in life and these workshops will help them better themselves and their life.
