The Philadelphia Citizen: Lilly Rodriguez - September 8, 2022
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You can imagine prison, but you can’t really understand it and truly empathize with it until you’ve experienced it,” says Rasheeda Bagwell, of the Women’s Reentry Program.
The Women’s Reentry Program is an initiative of the Mural Arts Philadelphia, whose over 4,000 citywide public murals represent both hundreds of artists, but also dozens of diverse, community-centered projects and programs. The Program is a relatively new offshoot of The Guild, Mural Arts’ paid apprenticeship and job training program that supports recently incarcerated people. Women’s Reentry is different because it also offers parenting workshops, and training in everything from job skills to personal finance to mindfulness.
Mural Arts founded The Guild in 2009 to help returning citizens overcome some of the barriers to success they face on the outside. These extreme challenges include finding employment and housing, rebuilding self-worth … and not falling back into the criminal justice system. An average of 100 returning citizens take part in The Guild each year. Its workshops, all based at 915 Spring Garden Street, run weekdays from 1 to 5pm for four months.
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