An online social and media education program conducted for a group of women in jail. As a result, their social participation and self-advocacy will be initiated. The participants will run a blog eWKrate.pl and a broadcast for the prison radio station, which will be heard by the whole prison community (700 people). The audience of the blog will be society outside the prison - the participants will stay in touch & lead a dialogue with it, in spite of isolation (imprisonment & global pandemic).

Warsaw, whole Poland

The participants: 20 women from prison.The program aims at enabling them social participation and strengthening this process. Prepare them for not only the time after they are released but also for the life in prison. It will teach them self-advocacy, empower them in their relationships with other prisoners and officers, help them shape relationships in the prison community. All those will be continued after the participants are released. It will activate the participants’ awareness of their own subjectivity and efficiency, teach them how to speak up for themselves, without any ‘’middlemen’’ or ‘’representatives’’. It will allow them, in spite of isolation, to lead a dialogue with the society outside of prison and decrease the stigmatization of prisoners - thanks to the blog eWKrate.pl.

The participants will include a group of 20 women from the Warsaw Detention Center in Grochów. They all are sentenced to long jail terms (from a few years to a lifetime). The age groups vary from 23 to 68 years old. They come from all over Poland, towns, cities, villages. Have primary to higher education.

We are planning on doing 20 online social education workshops and 10 blogging workshops - they will be running for 12 months.

These will be workshops in areas of:

1. social and psychological area
- developing communication skills
- developing interpersonal skills
- building self-esteem
- self-realization
- motivation
- dealing with failure
- mediation methods of solving conflicts
- preventing exclusion (e.g. due to menstrual poverty)
2. civic activation area
- media education: learning to use social media consciously
- media education: learning how to create important messages
- social media: conscious use
- social activity and effectiveness
- volunteering
- citizen’s rights and obligations
- human rights and their protection 
As a part of blogging workshops the participants will plan and write posts and replies, conduct editorial work and have dialogues with readers from outside of prison.

Volunteering: the participants will include inmates who will voluntarily work in the prison radio station. They will create broadcasts about the workshops, as well as run the blog.

Thanks to the project the participants in prison will go beyond isolation, will keep in touch with the society outside the prison and will get prepared for life after being released. The society will get prepared for the release of the inmates and will create space for them to function and evolve. The project will decrease the stigmatization and social exclusion of the participants.

The participants will be equipped with new social skills, they will become self-advocates, both in prison and later, outside of it. Aware of their efficiency, their own resources and ways of using them, they will be prepared for life in freedom within the limits of the law and for influencing the communities. They will get the chance to become active citizens.

Since 2011 we have been working continuously and regularly in different prisons, including the Detention Center in Grochów. We have a solid knowledge about the situation of inmates, their needs and deficits. We have experience and a team of associates - experts who allow us to implement complex projects. We also have the trust of the Prison Guards. In 2020 we were the only organisation in Poland that did not interrupt the workshops in prison because we switched to online mode. Based on our experience, we know that social readaptation and inclusion of prisoners is possible only through irregular and long-term work. That is why this idea is so important to us.

Travel costs 125 EUR
Costs of conducting classes 3750 EUR
Costs of managing onlie classes 750 EUR
Office expenses 300 EUR
Financial activities costs 740 EUR
Evaluation costs 750 EUR
Costs of running a blog 1250 EUR
Coordination costs 1250 EUR
Documentation costs 500 EUR
Costs of running a website 750 EUR
PR costs 1500 EUR
Office supplies 75 EUR
Art materials for conducting classes 175 EUR

We’re interested in any advice, feedback and ideas. We want to exchange our experience with other people who do similar projects in different environments & different solutions. We’re eager to develop our methods of work, we want to enrich them and develop them in terms of content and communication.