How are you serving your community?
I am serving my community by trying to bring awareness to my unit about issues that affect women directly. This month which is Breast Cancer Awareness month my Peer Support Team and I have made a poster and posted it in the Hair Care room where everyone can see it. On the top it reads “Fight for a Cure” and is decorated with pink ribbons. Everyone was invited to write a loved ones name who has either survived or not survived breast cancer. The poster serves as a memorial. In the ice/hot water room I have posted information about Breast Cancer like statistics and myths. I feel that by bringing awareness about issues that affect women directly it could save someone’s life. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is really important especially in prison. When we are serving a long sentence we can not afford to ignore health issues. We must detect any issues early on or the consequences could be fatal. It is so hard to get good health care in prison and too many times I have seen people just ignore making healthy lifestyle choices and it has cost them their life. Many times I have seen people that have been really close to their release date get diagnosed with cancer after serving decades and died and never make it home. This is something really sad. A prison sentence should not be a death sentence. I feel the need to bring awareness to these issues and if my team is even able to influence or teach one person a new thing I feel we have made a difference in our community. The compound will be holding a Cancer walk on Oct. 22nd and our unit will take this poster and more that we are going to create out to the walk. In union with others across America we will remember our loved ones survivors and non survivors.
