Womxn’s Higher Education in Prison Consortium
Image: FEPPS BA graduates walk to their graduation ceremony at WCCW.
The Womxn’s Higher Education in Prison Consortium
FEPPS is creating a National Consortium for Womxn’s HEP Programs!!!
The Mellon Foundation, has awarded a generous grant to the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound (FEPPS) to support its work in women-designated prisons. FEPPS aims to address the unique barriers faced by higher education programs in women-designated prisons by creating a national consortium focused on their specific needs, such as trauma-informed, intersectional pedagogy, increased professional development opportunities, and equitable funding. Women’s prisons often lack resources compared to men’s facilities, limiting access to these transformative programs and reentry services. With Mellon’s support, we will bring stakeholders for women’s HEP programs to the table to begin to learn across our experiences and to strategize together.
In addition, FEPPS will now be able, through this grant, to expand its offerings to include professional development opportunities—similar to those found in career centers on traditional college campuses. The opportunities will include curriculum writing and facilitation training and a professional mentorship program. These resources will provide our graduates with essential tools for success, helping them explore their passions and synthesize the powerful education they have earned with both career and creative opportunities.
We are excited to accelerate our work building a future where all individuals, regardless of their circumstances, have access to the transformative power of education.
Stay tuned for updates as we embark on this exciting journey!
—The FEPPS Team
Our National Consortium Team:
Christina Dawkins, Human Rights Consultant
Christina Dawkins is a human rights activist focused on combating modern-day slavery. She founded A4Abolitionist, a consultancy; A4Academy, a social justice training resource; and the Abolition Project, a non-profit think-and-do tank. Christina specializes in human trafficking, incarceration, and immigrant detention, using digital storytelling, systems mapping, and participatory research to center BIPOC women’s experiences. She has developed programs for Creative Time, the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, and Brown University, and led workshops for institutions like Oxford, the Congressional Hunger Center, and the AIDS Foundation. She holds an M.A. in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University.
Contact Christina at whep@fepps.org
“My education is something I earned that can never be taken away from me. It will open doors for me that might not have been there without a degree, and has become an important part of my future.”
-2018 AA Graduate