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STUDENTS IN DUBLIN have set up a project to help ex-prisoners find employment after release from prison.
The team from DCU – Cathal Curry, Lucy Mangan, Jack Kane, Daniel Kyne, Matthew Hewston, Margaret Hanlon and Christopher Sheerhan – won an Enactus award earlier this year for the project Second Scoop. They will represent Ireland at the Enactus World Cup in September.
(Enactus is an international non-profit “dedicated to inspiring students to improve the world through enterpreneurial action”.)
Where it all began
Curry explained to TheJournal.ie that last year some of the DCU team spoke to ice-cream company Ben & Jerry’s about possible ideas for the Enactus competition. It told them that if they could use its product for social enterprise, it would back the students.
During a brainstorm, the team hit on the idea of working with former prisoners “to basically give them a second chance at life”, said Curry.
“Because we found that 62% of ex-prisoners reoffend within three years of release,” he explained. “This is known as the prison cycle and this is something we wanted to do, intervene, and [we] wanted to break this cycle.”
The cost to the Irish taxpayer to house someone in prison for a year was huge. €842 per week is the cost. If over 60% are reoffending that’s a huge cost to the State as well as it’s not good for society in general.
So they partnered with Care After Prison, a north Dublin-based charity which works with former prisoners.
The team picked a man named Stan Yanchev from a shortlist of three candidates given to them by Care After Prison.
Yanchev, who lives in Dublin, said that when he heard about the project he “thought I’d give it a chance”. He had spent three months in prison in Portlaoise and wanted to get employment now that he had been released.
“They were just telling me it was a chance there could be a job after it and something to keep me busy,” he said. “I am still looking for a full time job.” He has worked with Second Scoop once and is in touch with them about summer work.
Trained in
Yanchev was trained in on the role and in general IT skills, such as sending out emails to corporate companies looking for sales days.
The next thing to do was to set up a business plan and discuss it with Ben & Jerry’s. From there, the ice cream company set the team up with an account with its distributor.
The first sales event on campus in DCU was a “huge success”, said Curry. “For us that was the emphasis – that was the reassurance that what we were doing could work,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be like a full time job,” said Yanchev of Second Scoop, but it “gives you communication skills” and is an “opportunity to develop yourself a bit to deal with people and be able to kind of advertise products”.
It’s just one way of trying to find employment. “I just keep sending CVs around and all that,” he said. “It is hard enough to get a job these days.”
He has his security licence and is looking for work in security. ”I’d like to own my own business – import and export, anything,” he said.
‘Everyone deserves a second chance’
Does he think people judge those who have come out of prison? “I think people are judgemental,” he said. “I don’t let it get at me. For some people they would take it seriously. Everybody deserves a second chance and once someone makes a mistake, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be like that for the rest of their life. People change.”
I think there should be more programmes like that to help people who come out of prison rather than nobody caring…
For each event, Yanchev stocks up the mobile freezer with Ben & Jerry’s that has been delivered to the DCU campus. He handles the sales for each event: there are two models, one where the event organisers pay for the products and the ice cream is distributed for free, and the other where the attendees pay for the ice cream.
He gets the living wage of €11.50 per hour while working with Second Scoop.
“Moving forward we want to give Stan as much responsibility as he is able for,” said Curry, in order to create sustainable employment for Yanchev.
“We don’t see any reason why we can’t replicate the model with other former prisoners like Stan if it is successful,” said Curry. “But it’s going as a case-by-case basis so far – we are in the growth stage with it.”
“Taking to CAP we found an awful lot of people who find themselves in prison for minor offences, which Stan would be included in, were victims of circumstance,” he added. “They often grew up undervalued, didn’t get as many opportunities as a lot of us and found that they literally just mixed with the wrong crowd when younger and made a silly mistake that changed their life forever.”
Curry said that the project “has opened our eyes to the fact there are these really capable people out there who aren’t getting the chances they deserve”.
“And that this prison cycle that we have in Ireland is costing society when people like Stan could definitely be contributing to society instead, that was the main thing we wanted.”
Concluded Curry:
What we found was the kind of cultural idea that these people cost society is not true and with a bit of support and a hand up they can contribute instead.
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Car crash tv for donaldson,the only thing coming out of his mouth was the protocol and had nothing to back up his claims.they are been found out for the spoofers that they are.hopefully there is a big change in northern Ireland after this election
@doyle: once a blue nose always always a blue nose. It will never get better unfortunately.
@Paul Gorry: I’m putting the monkey on us for the final. Very confident now i have to say.
@Vonvonic: iam glad it’s your monkey. Best of luck.
@doyle: DUP could be in big trouble if todays poll figures are accurate, because if the DUP and Alliance are level on 18.2% in first preference votes, then you must assume that Alliance will be far more transfer friendly than the DUP.
Early retirement for Jeffrey?
If this was a private company and they had to forsake their salaries or go back to work there is no question what they would do !
@Michael Loughnane: It was funny the only person in the audience to speak out in support of Jeffrey and the DUP’s stance on the Protocol was an Englishman.
@Joe Johnson: And that English man, Dan Boucher, is an ex Tory party activist who stood for the Torys in Wales but failed to get elected and has now joined the DUP. Possibly being lined up to take Jeff’s MLA seat so Jeff can continue as an MP in Westminster. He was also a prominent writer for Brexit Central.
Naomi Long was blindingly good tonight as was the SDLP guy. The Unionists are at each other’s throats. I hope the electorate take heed.
@Mary Conneely: Long and Eastwood were good. O’Neill afraid to open her mouth in case she put her foot in it. Beattie is the voice of reason in the Unionist camp and Eastwood is the best of the nationalist bunch, even with him being threatened with legal action by the Shinners. Sure who aren’t they threatening with legal action.
@GrumpyAulFella: Donaldsons disaster of a night as you failed to mention have shown up the dup big time..Sinn Fein an all island government soon..amazingly had only a handful of seats few years back but thanks to ff/fg mishandling the country putting it mildly they are the biggest party in the country.It must really hurt die hards like you to see Sinn Feins rise at your party’s demise.Leo and the boys think the turnaround is due to a savvy Sinn Féin social media campaign but its there total inept to do their jobs is what brought them down
@Brian Burns: You can only say that with certainty 5 years after the next general election but what’s the betting the mantra then will be 5 years wasn’t enough for SF to implement the changes needed to make our society a fairer one? I suppose a political change will be a good start but it will take some effort to get everyone on board to stop the waste and to build a more equal republic. Here’s hoping.
@Brian Burns: I’m surprised FG were not out canvassing for the DUP or the UUP
@Brian Burns: my party’s demise?? What party are you referring to? I’m afraid that 33% of the vote in the Republic, with no party willing to touch you with a barge pole will see your comrades stay on the back benches mo chara.
@GrumpyAulFella: your despise of sf,a party never in government is a result of media manipulation my friend,a subservient man who defends the government of the day without any critical thought,the polls speak for themselves, the media don’t fool the young so much as the old.Times are a changing me oul pal our day will come
@Tom Leddy: That old chestnut we hadn’t enough time,inherited a poisoned chalice nonsense that fg gave us first five yeArs after Bertie and the boys were ousted was a joke.If SF can’t implement change in five years move onto social democrats etc till some party stands up for the people..
@Shaun Gallagher: their mates in the journal did dup canvassing for them oul Jeffrey got great coverage here lately
@GrumpyAulFella:And I assume by your statement thatyou vote for FFG. I’m surprised that you haven’t also mentioned Maria Cahill like your handlers.
Sad people. They’re making it so that noone with any self respect could possibly pretend to care. Sad Sad Sad ulster unionism.
@Vonvonic: I thought they all done well except Jeffrey. He should of jumped at the chance to rejoin the UUP because the DUP hardline approach is not working anymore. The young people just think their Dinosaur attitude is from another era.
Hope that Alliance keep building election on election from here on in, a future merger/pact between them and the SDLP down the line might be the best way to go on the longer term path to normality and an eventual United Ireland as more of the TUV/DUP dinosaurs die off
90 seats, 38 constituencies! Madness. Bigger the table, less work gets done. DUP sliding can be a blessing or a hindrance as orange need representation and without it we could see a bit of anarchy. Alliance is obviously a more balanced keel so hope it manifests in the votes.
But 90 seats? – Mad Ted !
@Noel Lynn: Until 6 years ago, it was 108. High numbers were necessary to achieve the proper proportional representation and to get the Good Friday Agreement over the line.
The Alliance are just moderate unionists. They always vote that was when push comes to shove.
@Neil A Campbell: they are middle of the road with representation from many communities, not just Unionists.
@Neil A Campbell: they are middle of the road with representation from many communities, not just Unionists. That’s what makes them interesting to voters.
@Con Cussed: just as FFG/Lab are existentially committed to a 26 County state so are Alliance to a 6 County statelet. They are certainly not United Irelanders.
Jeffrey’s boycott. Sticky wicket. I see what you did there.
You can be first minister in 26.6% of the vote. It’s ludicrous
@Rory: As a result of a backroom deal, there will soon be a new Taoiseach of the Republic; a Taoiseach coming from a party which only received 20.9% of the vote. Becoming Taoiseach backed by a party which only received 22.2% of the vote, and who´s leader said in the very first press statement after the results “the people voted for change, there will be no coalition with Fine Gale” … ;-)
@Rory: Have a good look at Minister Eamon Ryan.
@Rory: insanity. But this is going to be fun to watch. The Shinners have an awful habit of slagging off Donnelly’s third level education background. I don’t think O’Neill even wen’t beyond grammar school and she’ll be the FM of Northern Ireland.
@GrumpyAulFella: read michaels reply then read yours..you have lost the room again you ain’t making sense again so you double down on your hateful anti SF rhetoric..some buzz off ya tho
@Michael Mike Mathäß: nobody will reply to that factual well spoken comment Michael get out of here
@GrumpyAulFella: Anyone who uses the name Shinners shows his party colours immediately. Intelligent people dont refer to Find Gael as blueshirts or compare Fianna Fail with brown envelopes and corruption of the highest order. Using insults instead of facts is not conversation, it just shows your lack of education in how to put your point across no matter how farcical.
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