About New Freedom Project
In 2006, a group of incarcerated men joined together on common ground after realizing their time was best served by helping others. Inside the confined walls of prison they developed a full curriculum of peer lead courses to teach their fellow inmates fundamental life-skills and recovery principles to prepare each other for reentry into society.
Family members of one of the founding peers applied for 501(c)3 status for a non-profit entity, originally named Gold Canyon Heart & Home (GCHH). The success of this group led to corrections administration allowing the nonprofit to support peer mentors having their own classroom settings unsupervised by corrections officers.
Of the 140+ original mentors of the peer-to-peer program that have been released, none have recidivated. These original mentors were responsible for helping over 4,200 men and woman successfully reenter the community.
Today, GCHH, now known as The New Freedom Project (NFP) still carries out the original mission of peer-to-peer mentorship through a collaborative effort, now working from the outside-in.
New Freedom Project
In 2006, a group of incarcerated men joined together on common ground after realizing their time was best served by helping others. Inside the confined walls of prison they developed a full curriculum of peer lead courses to teach their fellow inmates fundamental life-skills and recovery principles to prepare each other for reentry into society.
Family members of one of the founding peers applied for 501(c)3 status for a non-profit entity, originally named Gold Canyon Heart & Home (GCHH). The success of this group led to corrections administration allowing the nonprofit to support peer mentors having their own classroom settings unsupervised by corrections officers.
Of the 140+ original mentors of the peer-to-peer program that have been released, none have recidivated. These original mentors were responsible for helping over 4,200 men and woman successfully reenter the community.
Today, GCHH, now known as The New Freedom Project (NFP) still carries out the original mission of peer-to-peer mentorship through a collaborative effort, now working from the outside-in.
We do ask that you return one good deed with another and perform an act of kindness. This generous cycle of compassion and goodwill continues indefinitely.
We do ask that you return one good deed with another and perform an act of kindness. This generous cycle of compassion and goodwill continues indefinitely.
What we do
Through peer-to-peer relationship, we mentor inmates through the reentry process. We inspire hope while they’re still incarcerated and then we provide support and resources upon release.
Becoming a Better Version of Yourself
NFP isn’t just a nonprofit. It’s a vision that was started many years ago in a very difficult and desolate place. Our original peer mentors, serving 25 to life sentences, discovered that their life was made purposeful when they helped other people achieve some sense of purpose in their life.
We’re not talking about conceptual purpose. We’re talking about tangible power of purpose for living. When these men with life sentences who were never going to see the light of day started introducing people to the successful strategies for freeing themselves, even in those difficult conditions, they themselves became free in their spirit and mind.
Eventually, by grace of the Executive Board of Clemency, these men walked out of that prison, and several others who believed in that vision, joined in the mission. We still firmly believe we must meet individuals where they are and free you where you are. It’s freedom of thought that allows people to walk freely in the world.
NFP is a vision of people helping people become better versions of themselves on an ongoing basis.
The Symbiosis Between Addiction & Reentry
One of the things that the chains of addiction has in common with the physical bonds of incarceration is a similar imprisonment. With addiction, you are imprisoned in limiting thoughts about yourself. So it doesn’t matter if you’re secured by walls and fences or by flesh and thought patterns, you are imprisoned in either one.
We find in people who are incarcerated that they have both types of imprisonment going on—both chemical dependency and their other problems that have led to incarceration. If that doesn’t get addressed—if we don’t free them in there, they’ll never live free out here.
The goal of recovery is to awaken to your unique purpose and power. You learn to retell your story, overcoming or outgrowing the fears or limiting thoughts that prevent you from becoming a better version of yourself.