TRANSFORM YOUR MIND BEGINS YEAR 3 IN THE PHILADELPHIA PRISON SYSTEM
Transform Your Mind Interactive Learning Program (TYM) is entering its third (3) year in the Philadelphia Prison System. Designed by Lighthouse Covenant International (LCI) to confront and deal with the dysfunction of our communities and the crises resulting from fatherlessness. On February 4, 2012 a group of nine men from the Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility (CFCF) and ten men from the Dentition Center have successfully completed the first phase or building block in a sixteen (16) three hours a week series. A very disciplined and condensed program, a condition of program participation requires that all participants must adhere and abide by the rules of the program. Phase two is the second building block for the student who has completed Phase one. For those students in prison, once released, they can continue Phase two on the outside.
THE IMPORTANCE OF GRADUATION
Graduation ceremony is one day that students wait for right from the time they step into school, but for the inmates that volunteer to participate in the Transform Your Mind Program in the Philadelphia Prison System their initial thought is not graduation, but how they can use this program to have favor with the judge or another way to manipulate the system. However, for those participants that complete the program you begin to see a transformation-taking place, especially for those who have never started something and finished it. It is one proud moment in a student's life. It is a proud moment for their parents, the instructors, friends and all those people who care and value them. It is the day when they complete another phase of their education process and are free to step into the world and make new life changing and career decisions. It is the day when all the hard work that they put in, they believe will pay off once released back into society. Indeed, graduation is one memorable and emotional moment, filled with happiness, laughter, and tears of joy and sadness of parting with their friends.
"Here comes the end of the beginning,” a graduate said whose feelings are the blend of pride and sadness. How else would a student feel, who is happy that he is finally a graduate, proud that all his hard work has paid off, and yet feels the pinch of sadness. Once they leave graduation they go back to their cell, hoping they can put into practice what they have been taught for the last 16 weeks. Transforming ones mind is not easy, so they have every reason to feel proud about themselves. The journey that they begun 16 weeks ago when they were still self absorbed, not sure who they are and how they fit into society finally meets its destination.
Hence my dear friends make the most of your graduation day. It is not the end; it is the beginning of a brand new journey. New opportunities and experiences are on your way. And so are failures. Grab all of them. Takes risks, don't be afraid of challenges and explore all areas of opportunities on your way. So that tomorrow-in life, when someone asks you what you want to become, you won't have to think. You will just know.
A new semester of Transform Your Mind begins on Saturday March 17, 2012, at both CFCF and Detention Center of the Philadelphia Prison System.
