RECLAIM History

After 17 years of supporting incarcerated individuals in pursuit of education as University Beyond Bars, we are realigning our focus with the emergent needs resulting from the changing landscape inside our prisons. Our goal as RECLAIM is to provide access to safe, equitable, and culturally sustaining mental, emotional, and relational health resources and holistic support. We aim to offer person-centered care and normalize the work of personal growth and healing.

RECLAIM Vision

We believe that our liberation is bound up with the liberation of others; as such, we are committed to the self-determination, autonomy, agency, and well-being of every person in our community

We envision a world where care is common, collective, and rooted in the inherent dignity, agency and belonging of each one of us.

RECLAIM Values

Collective Liberation

We are committed to collective liberation as an ethics of action. We believe, following the Aboriginal Murri activist Lilla Watson, that our liberation is bound up with the liberation of others; as such, we are committed to the self-determination, autonomy, agency, and well-being of every person in our community. We understand that we are but one part of a movement for justice that strives to build an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and joyful future where everyone is free.

Sustainability

We are committed to investing in our people as our most valuable resource. We are committed to organizational processes that are emergent, growth-oriented, and sustainable. We know that in order to be boundless in our vision, curiosity, creativity, and aspiration we must both create a container that honors boundaries and commit to taking the long view. In the face of oppression, we practice a discipline of hope and strive to make decisions from a place of courage. We know that we must be adaptable, prioritize nimbleness within our systems, and be willing to welcome change.

Accountability

We believe in mutual accountability and are committed to building relationships within our community that are clear-eyed and rooted in the truth of each person’s complexity, dignity, and humanity. We are committed to holding ourselves accountable to the needs of our incarcerated and formerly incarcerated community, in particular BIPOC community members. We are also committed to those who hold marginalized identities most impacted by the criminal legal system because we recognize that true accountability demands an intersectional lens and approach. We are committed to disrupting systems of oppression in and among ourselves, within our community, within our work, and within the institutions in which we operate.

Care

We come to this work with humility and through an ethic of transformative justice. We know that every one of us – and, by extension, every member of our community – has both committed harm and been the recipient of harm, and deserves to be accorded the grace to grow and learn. We believe in meeting one another, our students, and our community members where they are today, and in practicing mutual aid whenever possible. We reject a narrative of disposability and are committed to treating each other with respect, compassion, and care.

Solidarity

We believe that access to education and reintegration support is a foundational feature of the work we do and that these opportunities pave the way for our students to chart their own courses. We are committed to not only meeting the material needs of our students and alumni whenever possible, but also to resourcing them with the knowledge and tools to shape their own stories. We measure success by the extent to which those in our community become agents of change in their own lives.