We recently connected with Reginald Washington and have shared our conversation below.

Reginald, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business

I would not call this a crazy story, but it’s a little no fact that Project AWARE was actually created in prison. I received a life sentence in 1990 and because of that life sentence it forced me to take a look at myself to reflect on some of the decisions that I made and come to grips that I was also suffering from some trauma During my time of incarceration I created the program to help those who suffered from trauma who had to work on themselves Lil known fact the program that is now in colleges high school middle school in the community was actually a program that was created for prisoners serving time

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Project Aware was created to work with individuals who were lacking emotional literacy skills, social skills, and problems solving skills we utilize restorative practices as a way of doing things with individuals instead of two of them or for them Project Aware is known for creating leaders at a young men and young women. We’re a community based program that focuses on those who have been justice impact those who have Issues with trauma. We also believe in creating safe places inside our community and what that means is putting in the work to build healthy relationships so when you look at our program understand that all these things are important aspects of our brand of Project AWARE.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

During my time as individuals learning this process of owning a program, I had to understand that coming from prison a lot of individuals would not take a chance on my program. I had to stay resilient and accept a lot of nose because as someone who was formally incarcerated at this at that time, no one wanted to take that chance to allow my program to grow I could have easily given up at that time and because I wanted to use my program as a way of taking care of my family I had to also take a job before I can get my program up and running so taking that job at Macy’s, which was my first job ever it made it easy for me to be patient, but I also had to not give up because no one will allow me to actually start my program in their school as a matter of fact, I had my first opportunity by volunteering my program at a school and after they saw the responses from the kids only then did they give me an opportunity to contract with

Have you ever had to pivot?

When I first came home from being incarcerated for over 15 years, I had to understand that the program that I had built inside prison had never been done before, so I had to step back and get a regular job and allow my program to find his own way into schools and that first job was at Macy’s so for a small amount of time I had to focus on my job at Macys and not my program which I knew could be life-changing to communities to school and to kids

Contact Info:

• Website: www.project aware enterprises.org
• Instagram: Projectaware
• Facebook: Project AWARE Enterprises
• Linkedin: Reginald Washington
• Youtube: Project AWARE

Image Credits

Karen Normile Anthony Ceja Shnika Washington Renise Washington Linda Ledesma