Prison Entrepreneurship Program<\/a> own who they are as individuals.<\/p>\nIt starts with taking ownership of their names and the nicknames selected in the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe harder you are, the sweeter your name is going to be,\u201d said Christian Phelps, a PEP member and Sanders Estes inmate.<\/p>\n
His PEP name is Taylor Swift. He sang I Knew You Were Trouble\u00a0to describe why that name was chosen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want you to break down those defense barriers that you build up in prison,\u201d Phelps said.<\/p>\n
Calton Weir is another inmate and PEP member. His nickname is Jake from State Farm, and he\u2019s proud of it. It took a lot to build his joy because there was even more pain to break down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve been on my own since I was 13,\u201d Weir said.<\/p>\n
Weir said his mom started abusing him at age nine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were times that I would steal things from her, from my mom, she would, she would hold my fingers over the stove and burn them\u2026.Just, you know, like severe abuse,\u201d Weir said. \u201cThat caused me obviously to, to act out and I would run away and take out the hurt and the anger that I had, you know, inside from my mom on other people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weir is serving a 10-year sentence for murder alongside Phelps, who shot someone during a drug deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the wrong paradigm thinking that drugs and gangs would validate me as a man,\u201d Phelps said.<\/p>\n
Now, that validation has shifted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that I needed to change my life because I didn’t want to keep doing this,\u201d Phelps said.<\/p>\n
That shift led Phelps and Weir to join PEP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m thinking it’s all be all about business. And I get here and they’re like, yeah this is about business but it’s really about character development,\u201d Weir said.<\/p>\n
Every day for four months, the men learn about business, financial literacy and public speaking. They also build relationships with business executives.<\/p>\n
Adam Woods is a PEP graduate. He now serves as the program\u2019s in-person manager.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe network solidifies your success, so to say, because you have people to lean on, people to hold you accountable,\u201d Woods said. \u201cOur track record proves that we have the lowest recidivism rate in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the end of the four months, the men present business plans in a Shark Tank-style competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this program I’ve learned communication skills and I’ve developed myself to have social confidence,\u201d Phelps said.<\/p>\n
The skills gained in the program also helped graduate Zavier Comminey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, what a wonderful time of day to learn to come and play and get along with each other,\u201d Comminey said.<\/p>\n
He said he struggled with letting go of his ego.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou may feel like you’re one person and other people see you as a different person and God knows who you really are,\u201d Comminey said. \u201cThe person that you should be striving to be, remove the ego and be who God wants you to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the last stage of the program, the men who they choose to be by participating in a special graduation ceremony.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see a man develop and come to a point where he’s, uh, consciously and intentionally changing his life,\u201d Woods said. \u201cIt’s a ringer for you. It’s a heart ringer. It’ll get you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI never went to high school. I never even finished middle school, so,\u201d Weir said. \u201cCap and gown, I’ve never, never done anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cComing to this program, like people who I would have never spoken to, like I found a brotherhood with, and every day I’m motivated and inspired by these men,\u201d Phelps said.<\/p>\n
They were also grateful for the family who came to their graduation to support and see them walk across the stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI see the changes in myself. Now it’s not just words. It’s actions, and I think that means a lot, not only to myself, but it means a lot to my family too,\u201d Phelps said.<\/p>\n
The men are taking responsibility of who they used to be and owning who they\u2019ve become.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to move past that. It is, it\u2019s priceless,\u201d Weir said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Inmates at the Sanders Estes Unit are transforming their lives through the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, embracing personal growth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28,158],"class_list":["post-605361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}