THE DREAM … TO BUILD A NATION OF STORYTELLERS … NOT CRIMINALS

Greenlight District Project (Greenlight) teaches Film Writing to Offenders in Johannesburg, South Africa, at Meredale correctional facility, home to this pilot project (colloquially ironically called ‘Sun City’).

Prisons in SA hold our WORST FEARS, PARANOIA’s, and COVETED SECRETS. This program allows us to FACE these fears, VALUE our most undervalued, CROSS BRIDGES, LEARN from past mistakes, and HEAL OUR NATION. PERMEATING THE UNDERBELLY in this unique, supportive way we encourage offenders through the creative writing process to EVOLVE, face their past, come to terms with their future and by so doing we change lives. It has already proven that it is working – see Testimonials.

MISSION OF GREENLIGHT
Quality Assured by DCS (Dept Correctional Services)

• To EMPOWER OFFENDERS to RAISE THEIR CONSCIOUSNESS while incarcerated.

• To develop an INCOME BEARING LIFE-SKILL that is an alternative to crime for when they are released.

GREENLIGHT TRANSFORMS LIVES See Testimonials

DONATIONS will help produce 28 short films
written by offender students.

See Donate page

Support our project initiative

TWO MAIN REASONS FOR HIGH INCARCERATION RATE IN SA?

POVERTY:

IMPOVERISHED PEOPLE see no other options available to them except crime – debilitating especially in a post Apartheid SA that has inherited the backlash of the ‘crime mentality’ of dis-empowered persons.

LACK OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE:

Most offenders have got themselves into this position because of LACK OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE in the first instance. Greenlight teaches them the tools to shift consciousness into a more productive life experience.

VISION OF GREENLIGHT

• FREE THE MIND:
  

Incarceration does not mean the mind must be?

• CRITICAL THINKING:

  

Instead of rotting in a cell somewhere, storytelling keeps the mind SHARP and ALIVE. Honing the mind to be focused, tuned, and poignant is a craft in itself. If a gun, a ring, or a flower appears in the first act, respectively, it has to go off, be worn, (or not) or be plucked in the third act. Nothing occurs by chance in film. All actions have consequences. Offenders are challenged to think beyond their prison cells. This is a big adjustment for most of them when they start writing from prison.

• EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE:

Good storytelling demands balanced emotional intelligence. Students must unpack characters choices allowing them time to reflect on their own decisions in a non-pressurized way.

• INCOME-BEARING SKILL:

Greenlight stretches students beyond their limits by using global film writing terms. (Robert McKee, Christopher Vogler amongst others). See www.iqu2film.co.za. Good Writing Structure is Non-negotiable. It can prepare them for a profession after prison. That would be the prize!

• HEAL OFFENDERS:

By reflecting on the past through story, offenders can work through their own pain, loss, angst, trauma and chaos, in a uniquely crafted storytelling process allowing them to ‘shift their stuff’, to grow … in a calm, non-pressurized way. It gives students purpose and keeps their spirit alive.

• HEAL OUR COUNTRY – HEAL THE WORLD?:

By VALUING our most UNDERVALUED, if they become healthy – our nation becomes healthy too. If our nation becomes healthy we can help heal other under-priviledged societies around the world grow and become evolved. This can only be a win-win situation all round.

HEAL THE HEARTS OF A FEW – RAISE THE SPIRIT OF A NATION

HOW DOES GREENLIGHT TRANSFORM LIVES?
Greenlight Develops Two Teaching Techniques
1) MEMORY PROMPTING: Very challenging for film writing students as most of them have forgotten what the world looks like outside prison. So we teach through memory prompts, picture associations, and creative essays to rewire the brain to remember details.
2) IMAGINATION ACCELERATION: Word association, mind games, puzzle problem solving, legal case studies, watching and analyzing films, raises the students connection to new, fresh, different, interesting or challenging ideas, create new neural pathways and opens the possibilities of their creative characters to make other life-choices. This cognitively impacts on themselves to learn different outcomes for their own lives in a subtle but powerful way.

Writing is a SOUL JOURNEY, a LIFE JOURNEY towards SELF-ACTUALIZATION … Greenlight never asks the offender what they have done? Some of them have very long sentences, so one knows … Working in a creative space means that we must trust the integrity of spiritual energy. We have to believe in second chances, the power of the universal human spirit to change. TOGETHER, WE BELIEVE, WE CAN CHANGE THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES, ENVIRONMENT AND THE WORLD.

SHIFT THEIR STUFF – SHIFT OUR STUFF

WE CAN EVOLVE INTO A NATION OF STORYTELLERS AND HEAL OUR COUNTRY, IF NOT THE WORLD:

ISN’T THAT A NICE DREAM? TO RAISE A NATION OF STORYTELLERS – NOT CRIMINALS!

STATISTICS

SA HAS THE HIGHEST OFFENDER POPULATION IN THE WORLD!! % PER CAPITA SA OUTRANKS COUNTRIES WITH UP TO 5 x THE POPULATION! (Mexico 129-mil, USA 325-mil, China 1,3-billion)

Top 6 countries with the highest ranking offender population (World Prison Brief):

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

Greenlight seeks Sponsorship and/or Donor Funders.

• There are approximately 20,000 offenders in the Meredale district alone: 1,000 in the Female section; 500 Scholars in the Study Block Medium C (under certain conditions some are allowed to have computers in their cells);
  

• We need books, stationary, money for teachers and continued training.

CURRENTLY WE ARE SEEKING FUNDING TO PRODUCE 28 SHORT FILMS ALREADY WRITTEN see donate page.

PEOPLE WRITE BOOKS FROM PRISON … WHY NOT FILM?

Greenlight can be a conduit for enormous change in SA or even the rest of the world.

DONATIONS will help produce 28 short films
written by offender students.

See Donate page

Help Us Change Lives

Thank you, we are grateful you visited our world!