Growing up, Raheem experienced many challenges.
Having had a difficult homelife as a child, he ended up experiencing street homelessness as a young teenager, getting into trouble at school and eventually finding belonging, and an income, with other local young men involved in crime.
At 15 years old, Raheem was sentenced to three years in prison. Since then, he found himself in and out of custody in establishments across the country, an experience which has been characterised by violence and racial discrimination. He said:
“I got beaten up for my colour, I got battered because I was a Muslim. It was a very bad experience. I felt I had to protect myself because I was out in this world on my own. I had no family and I had to survive.”
When Raheem was in prison in his late 20’s, he met Spark Inside Service Delivery Manager, Elijah, and it was then that he decided he needed to do something different. He decided to embark on his Hero’s Journey, to unlock his potential and gain the tools needed to carve out a brighter future for himself.
We talked to Raheem about his experience…
“When I was doing my last sentence, I sat there thinking to myself, I need to be better. In prison I met Elijah and he said to me, this course would be perfect for you. So, if it’s perfect for me, let’s go see it and do you know what, the course blew my mind. I could not believe that something like that even existed in the system.
On the first day they asked, what is your purpose; none of us knew. None of us had a clue. But the course helped me find my purpose, helped me find out about myself as well. What kind of person I am. I realised that I like to help and make a difference. Not a hero but just to make that little difference in this world.”
Raheem went on to talk about our Possiping exercise, one of the most transformative elements of the Hero’s Journey, which means positive gossiping.
“I’ve still got the Possiping sheet in my cell, I use it as affirmations. When you do Possiping, the other people in the group are the ones who are talking about you and saying these things about you that you don’t see yourself. You never see it yourself. There’s so many things that they wrote, the page is full.
Hero’s Journey benefits us because it opens our minds and our souls, it makes you a better person. It’s about giving yourself a chance and you going to this course will make you think.”
Following the Hero’s Journey workshops, Raheem took up one-to-one coaching sessions with one of our excellent life coaches, Michael.
“Michael’s coaching sessions were wicked. The thing is with Michael, he will never tell me what to do but somehow, I would end up telling myself what to do and at the end of it he’s like: see? Michael’s amazing.
It all depends on your mindset, whether you want to make a difference in your life. If you want to make a difference in your life, and give yourself a chance, this course will make you think. This course does open your mind. Each session, slowly, slowly, there’s parts of your brain that I never thought would open, it opens up and once its open it’s a straight road from there”.
Raheem has now been released from prison, has moved to a new area (to avoid his previous connections) and hasn’t reoffended. He is now building a new life and looking for employment.
