before we begin our program i would like to somehow give a short introduction to each of them i guess what i would like to also welcome them here on the program thank you and before we can officially begin so there are many changes we would like to make as it pertains to the rights of individuals who have made mistakes in society and the change comes when the individual realizes and he's cognizant that there is a supreme being who rules over all the failures to my right we have a very distinguished friend of mine as most of you are his name is ron  round comes to us he is the cause for the east bay recovery project and he's also works for fat chance community service run has a living area  program here and we won't try to go through everything but at some point we will possibly that explain to you some of the things that he to us and to rob's right another good friend of mine low income patients i think i heard him say today that he had another job and i'm not quite sure what that job was that's with the safe return to say return price or yes and he's very successful with that project and to his right we have another brother that i met and i think in one nine hundred eighty five six and we've known the muslim chaplain and the state of california from two thousand and nine to two thousand and eleven he was the assignment at the state of california one thousand nine hundred ninety six to two thousand and nine and he also has an associate degree of orts that he completed from patton college he's also a counsel and addiction counselor in training to his right and so has little forty years of experience as a community worker and organize a n a consultant he's directed to share family care policy project and collaboration with back foundation and he has also served on numerous community boards including the entitled drug test force for the city of richmond california the east bay have a tat for humanity representative for contra costa college and solace is his greatest accomplishment is his thirty eight year marriage to his wife since the khalida he's twenty grandchildren four great grandchildren and so and his wife also conducts relationship workshops across the country again gentlemen i'd like to  each one of do what show just our relationships as i've known there's another time that i can call the up and speak with each one of you individually and you provide me with wealth concentrating on the building blocks that is required for low level felons once they are being released we know that the ex offender must remain so but he must have basic survival skills and he must also be employed and we would like to score with another ranch a clue see if he could give us some insight on those subjects as life skill places where they can come and get rescheduled to be able to have the confidence to go back out to community and actually test yourselves to jobs or other educational procedures that allow them to take care of families and friends you know a lot of them come home and then unskilled new law to come on their skills are either wrote it or they don't have the opportunity to be able to compete in this community i say that basically was personal experience because i've been somewhere before where i wanted to do a certain but they had me fighting fires when i told me there's no forces in oakland you know so i  i have i like to go to lie when brothers and sisters is coming home to make sure the playing field is fair so you know in order to get employment right you have to be able to be as same as anyone else coming in you know because i don't want people to think they need special treatment you know so we do policy were safe return to where we got the city of restraint were to take have you ever been convicted of a felony after application because that speaks to jobs you said if you can't get a job then you can't support yourself therefore it's going to be hard to stay sober you know so we developed we got the city respond to take it off and then also on health care you have to be healthy like to buy the said in his opening statement that you have to be sober because if you can't be sober and you won't be able to achieve any of the other things you have to deal with to be successful sell that safe return you know we try to do policy believe and seriously look at our life and and even begin to attempt to break cycles that maybe we haven't bothered about in the past you know which will bring forward potential and strengths sometimes that we don't realize we have mike teaches us on a daily basis and you know when somebody experiences men in and out of institutions we get a lot of information you know  a lot of experiences that normally you wouldn't get in the outside side but it's being able to harness those experiences you know and to realize the the the ability to take dead but mason to take that experiences and not only help myself but help somebody else here you know and through my breaking cycles showing history and then did change just to change the thought you know so we've been through particularly when it comes to the behavior pattern disenfranchising me i was concerned with prison ministry for some time in minute stone workshops is an offshoot of that so because we have to be able to work with our home in who are being release prison can you imagine ten thousand released from prison we have to be able to where we can be in a position for training but the training also involves perception the perception there must be a situation where if you keep doing what you've been doing you're going to keep getting the same results you've been getting so you have to realize that crime is not one of the options and we must begin to educate me and that the talent you have the experience that you have gained then not only should that be used to work with your peers but also to lay a foundation for our future generation we have to leave a legacy in our legacy as shelby needs to be that  now i am concerned about once an individual's been released and he can't get out of his environment and that is the environment that sent him to prison what do you do in a situation like that first  structure for themselves but he got to remember something when he go out in the street like a tool to my clients in a program you did it with a lot of wild cards out there it's a whole lot of walker the brother the cousin the friend down the street has not been most of them has not been a certain structures so tools you came to the house you don't use the tools so therefore when you good ability and i and before you lay down if you can show me that you did fifty percent in a well the suv i can show you to every citizen things with those wellness tools that keep you maintain your sobriety and you're affected because you know you know when i came home from being where i was or as you'd be in an email and i first came on first thing ideas try to call a wellness too and that wellness too wasn't there so what did i do has wild cards come from everywhere so the thing is that we have to identify wellness tools and do a daily maintenance plan and that daily mania can be anything from like walking like where and anything but whatever keeps you in your sobriety and one more thing i want to say and i follow what you say to me and i didn't use that word clean and so when i use them both together but i look at the thing and not separate my sober for me was not using drugs and alcohol but they clean part was the one that got me into not being sober so that clue part was i wasn't living clean is needed to be sober for me but that unclean living yes just a very good morning on for me and i'm going to use myself as an example when i came home the first thing that was important for me from was dead had to we think about what we do we know just do it we think about it then we do it even if that thought is just death that we thought about before we had so that was one of the main things that i think we have to transform ourselves when we want to bring on a sister comes home is that you can't think where you just left you can't think like that right you know we have to change our thought process you know because in able you know of course because of not much i would say return i'm always you know time or policy able to compete and when you get to the level playing fair you have to be able to think about what you're doing well so you can't compete you know i we've been in this behavior so long we forgot that we don't have to think like that we do not have to think like that you mean negative negative thoughts you know we can't compete i can't be a psychologist i can be a lawyer you know we don't have to think so low of myself because in that defeat says that everything that if you don't even try to do something you defeating yourself you know tools there is it used is learning to change one's thought process prior to one again is freedom because it is coming out to the street if you will and having not having changed the way you think you're not dealing with all the other issues that this to brings with it the job how to your family structure and what i'm noticing is a lot steady taking and external stuff and trying to get it fit into it you know and if it's a day we need really is internally ok because came you know i knew my thoughts you know and if they were perverted then having the knowledge that i could change that thought which would change their actions you know kept the man from deviating short i knew also did i need to make right ok and when i got to make then i didn't just see her as a woman i seen her as a dimension of me and you know and today i'm still seeing stuff that the books for me and who have been in costa rica and having that from those books i've taken so much wisdom from these young brothers and until they have expound in the books i've become a part of me  but also recently i found out some all the calls by you mom were in the mix and i'd like to share them and closing one is he said so human beings by virtue of the creation of their origination given to them by god motivated to make improvements in the law they are motivated and inspired until they reach that that god has created them for that has been one of my motivation go in prison ministry dealing with the fall in human condition yes is that the human being has conscious potential will never give up on some of the most brilliant you know so that that potential that god has placed into those individuals is still there and my truck to this has been those who came to hear what i had to say in the also says that you can be conscious of the fact that with the within you a great resources great resources for great production unusual energy wisely so this is what minute stone educational workshops intend to do in the future yes and we hope that your brothers will continue to support him and be with us as we prepare ourselves not only to heal ourselves as black men but to heal our communities and and without him this couldn't have been possible we also like to thank our support for mr king in our program manager for being here with us tonight and we hope that we can prepare some things in the future for ourselves our community and our children thank you god bless everyone