Personal Development
Sponsorship Program
"Cherishing and caring for others is
the source of all happiness. Cherishing
ourselves over
others, is the source
of all suffering
and negative conditions."
- Shantideva
Through our Personal Development Sponsorship Program, we connect a prisoner, who has no family or friends on the outside, with a sponsor who will help support their personal and spiritual development and continuing education. This is a wonderful program that brings compassion and support to those inside who want to better their lives.
We have established contact with incarcerated people in various prison facilities who are helping us with this sponsorship program. Our contacts inside the prisons scout out sincere individuals and hand out the Personal Development Sponsorship Program applications to those who may qualify for this program.
Qualification for sponsorship requires an incarcerated man or women who sincerely desires to better their life through continued education and personal and spiritual development. It also requires that the person has no family or friends on the outside to support them. The person fills out and returns the application for screening.
The main work of this program is to gather an ever-growing team of volunteer sponsors. Sponsors are those who want to offer humantarian service by way of supporting an incarcerated man or woman in their personal and spiritual development. We then connect the person inside prison with a sponsor on the outside and they begin a supportive relationship.
(11/10/08) Through our Personal Development Sponsorship Program, we have now connected 17 (8 women / 9 men) people inside prisons throughout the USA with caring sponsors on the outisde.
As a sponsor, you would help support the prisoner's personal and spiritual development and continued education in many different creative ways. This may be through providing books on various subjects, articles printed from the internet (prisoners do not have access to computers), helping the person complete their high school studies for a diploma (GED), assist them with college or other vocational courses, and so forth.
Those in prison who have a high school diploma have greater confidence in themselves and find better paying jobs when they are out of prison. In addition, the recidivism (backsliding) rates drop drastically for those who are engaged in some course of personal and spiritual development and have some support.
In this program, sponsors are not asked or required to be pen pals or to provide the incarcerated person with any mundane or entertainment-oriented materials. Our Personal Development Sponsorship Program is designed expressly for helping a person continue in their education and develop themselves on personal and spiritual levels.
A person inside prison may want to get a high school diploma, study some college or vocational courses, engage in studies of religious/spiritual teachings, or study holistic vocations such as shiatsu, acupressure/reflexology, ayurveda, permaculture, meditation, holistic health, nutrition, chi kung, psychology, hypnotherapy, oriental medicine, and so forth. In this sponsorship program, we focus our support upon the vocational, psychological, and spiritual development of the prisoner. In this way, we stay in alignment with the natural course of human development: education, character building and spiritual awakening.
Friends, the Personal Development Sponsorship Program is a powerful way to offer heart-centered humanitarian service and help change a person's life who has no other form of support! Would you be interested in becoming a sponsor?
A few details for those interested in becoming a sponsor in this program:
1) As a sponsor, you would never be asked to send money to the prisoner directly.
2) Prisoners are screened for the sponsorship program by filling out an application/request form.
3) The prisoner will organize and make requests for the areas of study they want to engage in. They would present their requests to their sponsor for consideration of support. No responsibility will be placed upon you as a sponsor to fulfill all of the requests of the prisoner. As a sponsor, you will offer support to the prisoner only in the ways you feel comfortable doing so.
4) There would be absolutely no obligations placed upon you as a sponsor to supply anything to the prisoner that is contrary to your personal ethics, financial capability or time limitations.
5) I will be personally available to support sponsors should they have any questions or concerns during the course of their sponsorship.
6) If you feel it is necessary, you are free to end your sponsorship of a prisoner at any time without obligation.
The Personal Development Sponsorship Program is a wonderful way to touch a person's heart, help them develop their innate capacity for goodness, creativity and awakening, and for us to provide heart-centered, humanitarian service in this world. If you would like to volunteer to become a sponsor please contact us for further information. It would be great to increase the numbers of our sponsorship team!
May the virtue of this service be dedicated to liberating all living beings from suffering, and to the ultimate goal of enlightenment for the benefit of all. May the precious heart and mind of compassion, wisdom, and love be generated in those who have not yet generated it. And may it increase continually in those who have already developed it.
