Last weekend, Leading with Conviction™ (LwC) graduates kicked off the 2nd Cohort of the Live Free Illinois Decarceration Leadership/Organizing Fellowship Program for 15 recently released returning citizens selected in partnership with the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Live Free Fellowship Manager Alexander Brown (LwC 2024) oversees the fellowship program alongside Live Free Illinois Executive Director Ciera Bates-Chamberlain (LwC 2021). Guest speakers included JLUSA board member Willette Benford, Marlon Chamberlain (LwC 2019), and Paul Rothschild (LwC 2024), who also assisted cohort members with basic computer literacy skills.
The Decarceration Fellowship aims to improve individual outcomes and opportunities for recently returning citizens while also building future leaders who will use their skills and experiences to challenge overly punitive and racially charged criminal justice policies and practices. Live Free Illinois’s current program theory holds that providing recently returning citizens with an intensive, highly structured, and paid leadership and community organizing training curriculum within the critical first months of release will help program participants achieve greater health and well-being, improve reentry outcomes, and grow into community leaders who are able to leverage their voices and lived experiences to mobilize their communities and influence justice reform policy change.
In our 10th anniversary year, JustLeadershipUSA’s work of educating, elevating, and empowering justice-impacted leaders continues and is growing even stronger!
This is going to be a very special time to look back on the past decade of JLUSA’s important work, the 1,600+ leaders we have helped get to the next level in their work, and even more importantly, we will look ahead to the next 10 years and beyond!
We can’t do this without you. We need your support to help us continue to do this work now and into the future. By making a donation in honor of JLUSA’s 10th anniversary year, you are saying to the amazing leaders in our network who represent the 70+ million Americans who have been directly impacted by the criminal legal system, “I see you, and I support you!”
Please give a one-time $100 gift or set up a recurring $10 monthly donation to celebrate JLUSA’s 10th anniversary year, and together we will build a fair and just U.S. Thank you!
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JustLeadershipUSA is a non-partisan organization. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed belong solely to the individual author or speaker, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the organization.
Since 2014, JustLeadershipUSA has maintained our commitment to ensuring systems-impacted voices are at the forefront of the movement for criminal legal reform, empowering directly impacted leaders in over 45 states with the tools, resources, and connections to transform their work.
Your donation will provide crucial support for our leadership training programs, empowering future generations of leaders and propelling the work of JLUSA and our alumni as we continue to advocate and push reform on issues that matter the most in our communities.
In just 10 years, JLUSA and our network of leaders have worked to dismantle decades of harm caused by the criminal legal system.