Free Write Arts and Literacy – CAPs
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CAPs is providing incarcerated youth with meaningful training, experience, and qualifications in arts-related fields, increasing their education and employment opportunities upon community reentry, which will help to steer them away from recidivism.
Founded in 2011 and established as a 501c3 in 2015, Free Write Arts & Literacy (FWAL) engages incarcerated court-involved youth in the performing, visual and literary arts so that they become the narrators of their own stories and the authors of their futures. Central to this mission is changing public opinion, and subsequently public policy, which undervalues the talents and aptitude of criminalized young people and divests from their communities.
The Envisioning Justice initiative funding was used for FWAL’s Careers in the Arts Program (CAPs), which provides incarcerated youth who already have their high school diplomas or GED’s with professionally-oriented classes combining arts instruction, practicum opportunities, and employment soft-skills training. CAPs would provide 15-20 incarcerated young adults with meaningful training, experience, and qualifications in arts-related fields.