Women on the Rise held Howard University’s second annual female reentry leadership conference last month. Seminars to help previously incarcerated women readjust to life on the outside were provided along trainings for practitioners who frequently interact with women who are previously incarcerated were also offered. Previously incarcerated women have a tough time readjusting to life on the outside, including reconnecting with their families.
“The two most significant challenges are housing and employment,” said Cedric Hendricks, Associate Director of the Office of Legislative, Intergovernmental and Public Affairs, a federal agency that supervises adults in the District of Columbia who are on probation, parole, or supervised release. “It is often hard to get an employer to say yes. Affordable housing costs money. Employment and housing are critical to success.”
Re-entry into society is a difficult task, and while D.C. attempts to ease the transition through a multitude of resources, sometimes individuals may feel as though they fell through a crack.
“Re-entry is traumatizing,” Amme Voz, a previously incarcerated woman, said. “I don’t expect to gain anything from this [conference].”
Voz is not using her real name because she believes the attention could be detrimental to her re-entry.
Office of Returning Citizens Affairs (ORCA) director Charles Thorton disagrees about the potential benefit of the conference to Voz and other attendees.
“We’re the little engine that could,” he said.
Thorton noted that women are having a greater role in the city then they used to, citing Mayor Muriel Bowser and Deputy Mayor Courtney Snowden as examples.
Deputy Mayor Snowden spoke at the conference about having been in the same shoes as some of the attendees. Her son was adopted from two teens who could no longer be responsible for him, and for the first six months that he was in her care she had to use her son’s city-funded resources.
“I have never had a more demoralizing experience in my life,” Snowden said of accessing those services.
Snowden told Street Sense she valued her experience at the Women on the Rise event.
“It’s a new government, and we’re doing things differently. I’m most excited that I got so much constructive feedback from the conference.”
The previously incarcerated women benefitted from a financial empowerment workshop, an entrepreneurship workshop and a leadership.
Lunch was provided after the morning sessions, followed by a keynote speech from Kemba Smith, author of the memoir “Poster Child.”
Smith was incarcerated in 1994 for minor drug crimes related to her then boyfriend Peter Hall. She was sentenced to twenty four and a half year, but pardoned in 2000 by then-President Bill Clinton.
The last session of the day was a public speaking workshop, after which certificates of achievement were distributed by Thorton.
Throughout the day, incarcerated women spoke up about what they wanted, from being able to wake up in the morning and not weep about their futures, to opening their own cleaning businesses. Deputy Mayor Snowden believes that the women took an important step towards creating a better tomorrow.
“You have been given the opportunity to make today great, just by waking up,” Snowden said.
