So hello everybody, and thank you guys so much for coming.
My name is Nialena Ali.
And today, I'll be presenting on "Finding Peace in Prisons,"
particularly reflecting on my internship experience
with the alternative surveillance project.
So why prisons?
I'm sure many of you are wondering, as my mother did.
So, I'll put it two ways.
Firstly, I'm a double major in international relations
and Africana studies, and much of my studies
do focus on human rights, politics, and black liberation.
And mass incarceration is an issue
that pertains to all of these things.
So in the United States, though we have only 4%
of the entire world population, we
house over 25% of the world's prisoners,
and we incarcerate more people than anywhere else
on this earth, by far.
And also, this issue is highly racialized.
So black people make up only 12% of this country, however,
we make up close to 50% of the prisons,
even though studies show that in no arena
are we more prone to crime than any other people.
So looking really at the disproportionate reality
of prisons, I knew that when I could receive my Lynk funding,
I wanted to go and work in prison communities.
And so I began interning with the Alternative Surveillance
Project.
Before explaining what this project is and what they do,
I'll briefly just say how I got involved with them.
And it's a pretty simple story.
So I was studying abroad in Cape Town.
I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew where I wanted to do it.
I wanted it to be in the Massachusetts area.
And so I really just went on the internet
to find an organization that was doing the type of work
that I was interested in, because surprise, surprise,
Mount Holyoke doesn't have a whole ton of resources
to get us girls going in men's prison.
So I took to Google, found the organization,
and was very pleased to be a part of what they're doing.
So the Alternative Surveillance Project holds workshops.
And workshops are three days long,
in prisons throughout the country.
So they operate in over 31 states and in over 100 prisons.
And in these workshops, we really just have a lot of fun.
We play a lot of different games that foster community.
And also, we can get pretty personal and share different
stories about ourselves and also become pretty vulnerable
with one another.
And it was very moving to be a part of this,
because you see people connecting
across different lines that they might not
have been communicating with and interacting with one another,
if they weren't in this space.
So that was very powerful to get to see and to get
to be a part of.
And also, there's an element of peer mentorship
in these workshops, because after
a certain amount of training, after three workshops then
incarcerated people, as well as outside people,
can have a workshop in learning how to train and leave
the next workshop.
So that peer element was very nice.
It's also a very egalitarial model,
in that outside participants are on the same level
as inside participants, because we all
have things we can learn about loving one another,
and also ourselves.
And also, ABP has been proven to reduce recidivism.
So recidivism is the rate of returning to prison.
And in the United States, if you have been incarcerated,
you're more likely to go back than not,
because our society doesn't offer many resources for you
to stay out.
And so nationally, the recidivism rate is 75%,
and AVP cuts this in half.
And participants who participate in these workshops
have a 40% less chance of going back to prison.
So we can see the impact with numbers.
So my work with AVP, as an intern,
I've had a lot of administrative duties.
And so mainly, I was doing a lot of planning
for their conference.
So in 2017, they have a national gathering.
And my role, I did a lot of budget planning,
calculating transportation costs, housing costs,
comparing venues, food, all those type of things.
And I also did data analysis for collecting
the surveys of the last three years, over 1,000 surveys,
crunching the numbers, seeing what people did and didn't
like, and seeing how can we implement that
in the next conference to come.
Of course, I also participated in workshops,
traveling across the state a lot,
going to different prisons.
And then also, I did do the T4T, Training 4 Trainers,
and I am certified to lead these workshops myself.
However, I wasn't able to do this over the summer,
due to bureaucratic limitations.
And I was actually-- there is a lot of value
in not being able to do it, but making the calls,
doing the footwork, and finding out the reasons why.
So maybe you can schedule something
to be in a prison for whatever reason,
but there could have been a riot the night before.
It's locked out.
And you drive there, and you can't come.
Or the director of treatment, who lets you in,
they're not around.
No one's really there give you the green light
and open the door for you.
So I really appreciate it.
Though I didn't get to do the trainings myself,
I got to experience the behind the scenes work.
Also, my experience with the Alternatives
to Violence Project was quite unique,
and that I was the only staff member who was of color,
and also the only person under the age of 50.
So it was an interesting feeling, like an outsider,
while within this organization, but also, recognizing
what really brings us together.
So though I did experience a lot of microagressions,
I was able to understand a lot of the people
that I was working with and really see their dedication.
And that's what tied us all together.
We were dedicated to the same work
and seeing how committed they were to drive hours away
to spend their entire weekends in prisons.
And so I appreciated that.
And also, I was able to make connections with the people
that we were working with.
So once we get inside, most of the men look like me.
We're around the same age.
We can joke, laugh, relate with one another,
talk like we do back home from California.
So my Spanglish is pretty good.
And so that was really great too.
And overall, the uniqueness of my experience
made me really able to learn how to navigate
two different spaces simultaneously with dignity,
poise, and respect.
So the lessons I learned-- professionally, I
gained insight into what it is like to work with a nonprofit.
And I also saw, what is it like to have
prison your place of work?
So instead of reporting to an office every day,
you'd be reporting to a prison.
So that was great to see.
And personally, I also gained insight
into the emotional burden of helping others.
So to hold space for other people,
sharing a lot of painful stories or different issues
that we're going through, and that has an impact on yourself
too.
And how do you leave that space, knowing
those men aren't going to be leaving
to go watch Netflix that day?
So I had to engage in a lot of self-care in calling my mom.
And that was important, to learn that balance.
And then my future goals-- so my internship experience with AVP
and what Lynk provided me-- so it
made me realize that I came in thinking
I wanted to do a job in prison teaching,
but I actually left realizing I'm a lot more interested
in prison policy.
And so it really came down to a macro versus micro approach.
So AVP, they are experts at the microapproach,
having 10 people in a room, acknowledging their humanity
as individuals.
But reporting to these prisons everyday to do this work,
I just couldn't get over.
So when you go into most prisons in the United States,
you have white guards with guns and German shepherds,
and then you have black and brown people in shackles.
And I just can't live with that reality in my country.
And so it made me a lot more interested in how
we change this visual dynamic.
So I became a lot more interested
instead of being inside the class,
maybe on the larger scale, in the courtrooms,
or in the places that these policies take place.
So I'm currently applying to law school,
and I wouldn't have come to these conclusions,
if it wasn't for the Lynk funding and my work with AVP.
To wrap up, I would just like to thank Lynk-UAF, the Mount
Holyoke faculty, who made me passionate about these issues
over my 3 and 1/2 years here.
The AVP staff, particularly Nancy [INAUDIBLE],
my mentor, and Chris [? Campbell, ?]
the CEO of the organization, the men of Essex County
Correctional Facility, and Massachusetts Correctional
Institution at Shriley.
And lastly, I want to give a special thanks to my mom
for all of those long phone calls.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]