Insight Garden Program – Berkeley, CA
Insight Garden Program (IGP), a grassroots non-profit led by people who were previously incarcerated and most impacted by incarceration, provides a “re-connection through nature” restorative rehabilitation approach for transforming the lives of incarcerated individuals. IGP’s in-prison programming and reentry support provide an “inner” and “outer” gardening approach and curriculum that includes vocational gardening, and landscape training so that incarcerated individuals can successfully reintegrate into the community, transform their lives, and end the cycle of incarceration. IGP currently operates inside nine prisons across the state of California.
Through the Fund for Workforce Equity, IGP is conducting a participant-centered design process that will guide the organization as it considers the next phase of its re-entry work connected to pathways to employment, especially in green economy sectors. This inquiry includes interviews with participants currently enrolled in IGP’s prison programs, alumni who are out of prison, and partner organizations who offer workforce development programs for people in re-entry. IGP has hired program alumni as advisors to the process to ensure that the organization centers the voices of those impacted by the criminal legal system, who are disproportionately people of color in California.
The Fund for Workforce Equity grant has enabled IGP to hire four IGP alumni who have helped to design the process, write the interview questions, and will ultimately conduct interviews with people in reentry and with partner organizations.
“Our four advisors, who collectively hold 100 years of lived experience with incarceration, have already pointed out the enormous gap in training opportunities for people who are serving time in prison and when they return home to their communities. They also emphasized the importance of stabilizing and supporting people so they are ready to enter the workforce into living wage jobs. This includes ensuring that their papers are in order, securing ID’s, emotional support, and attention to mental health and substance abuse issues. These early learnings encourage IGP staff to pay close attention to what our participants and alumni tell us–to really listen to priorities from their perspective,” said Amanda Berger, Director of Community Partnerships at IGP.