We were lucky to catch up with ROBYN HASAN recently and have shared our conversation below.
ROBYN, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with talking about how you serve the underserved, because in our view this is one of the most important things the small business community does for society – by serving those who the giant corporations ignore, small business helps create a more inclusive and just world for all of us.
Women on the Rise is a membership-based organization led by and for a diverse sisterhood of Black women who are impacted by the legal system. Through community organizing and supportive services, we are building a powerful base of women with the skills and experience necessary to wage and win campaigns. We are striving to end mass incarceration and achieve collective liberation, while transforming ourselves and our communities.
We assist those that society has thrown away. People have served their time and then come home to barriers that prohibit them from being able to reestablish themselves as productive citizens
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am a formerly incarcerated woman of color who has come home and fought hard to change a sytem that caused so much harm to myself and other women I left behind. We developed a sisterhood of freedom fighters who has used their negative experiences and turned it into positive results by trying to change a system that is not meant to make you better yet to break you down
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
We have been able to create a Women on the Rise inside group that has informed women still serving time about changes that affects them while they are experiencing incarceration. Teaching them to use their experiece to help build them up in a sytem that is very harmful
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I grew up thinking, you do something bad, you go to jail and they correct you to be better. That is not the case. They call it a Department of Corrections but it really is just a holding facility. It doesn’t do anything to help you change your mindset or how to deal with anything that got you in that situation. It puts you in a worse situation then when you went in.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.WomeontheRisega.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/womenontherisega
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WomenOnTheRiseGA/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/WomenOnTheRise1
- Youtube: https://www.11alive.com/video/entertainment/television/programs/atlanta-and-company/women-on-the-rise/85-ea438b3d-64b0-4c42-883f-956ef0925a79