This is the VOA Special English Education Report , from http://voaspecialenglish.com | http://facebook.com/voalearningenglish
Some women's
prisons in the United States offer classes for college credit. But when the
prisoners are released, they may not have much chance to continue their
education. In two thousand, a woman named Barbara Martinsons started a program
to help these former prisoners. She established the College and Community
Fellowship. Ms. Martinsons taught at Manhattan Marymount College in New York
City. She has also taught college courses at a women's prison in New York state.
The College and Community Fellowship provides advice to former prisoners. It
also helps them gain admission to college. That process can be very difficult
for anyone, let alone a person with a prison record. The group also provides
financial aid to members attending college. Members of the College and Community
Fellowship are called CCF Fellows. Some have earned not only college degrees but
master's degrees and a doctorate. Selina Fulford has already earned one master's
degree and is working on her second. She is now an adjunct professor at the
College of New Rochelle in New York state. About seventy percent of those in the
program work full time while studying. Nationally, one-third of women who have
been in prison are later sent back for committing other crimes or violating the
terms of their release. By comparison, almost none of the CCF fellows have been
sent back behind bars. The Reverend Vivian Nixon, a minister, heads the College
and Community Fellowship. She once spent time in prison for falsifying
documents. She says the group helps people reclaim the goals they had for their
lives before going to jail. You don't have to just accept any job -- at a
fast-food restaurant or cleaning up a hotel or cleaning up the streets, she
says. As she puts it, "You can still have desires and goals, and we are going to
help you meet those desires and goals."About two hundred seventy people are in
the program. The group holds meetings where the women talk about subjects like
personal finance and developing a career, and there is a social hour. Vivian
Nixon says society in general is happiest when the women do not go back to jail.
But she says her greatest hope is that members of the fellowship members are
setting high goals for themselves and their children. We have more stories about
education programs for people in or out of prison. You can find them, along with
other reading and listening materials for learning English, at
voaspecialenglish.com. For VOA Special English, I'm Carolyn Presutti. (Adapted
from a radio program broadcast 19Apr2012)
원문출처 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKOKQYD7sbs&feature=youtube_gdata
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