Way Ahead Ministries is about all about giving girls and women a chance at a new life upon release from prison.

WAM provides help and support to women as they get re-established in their town. We have pre-release visits, where possible, to get to know the women then we meet them at the gate on their release date.

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The volunteers at WAM help the women with benefit applications, job searches, housing problems, transport & assistance at council and/or medical appointments and much more. We can supply household items and food packages to women that are starting with nothing. We run a drop-in service and a mentor service and every lady we work with has their own personal buddy and prayer partner.

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A lot of women are caught in a revolving door of reoffending and have nothing to help them break the cycle and no-one willing to give them a chance to change.

At Way Ahead Ministries we show how having a relationship with God can change a person and their circumstances, we show this with our actions just as Jesus did – he taught us that love doesn’t just talk about it, Love Does!

 

One of the drawbacks of being incarcerated for a long time is you get stripped from your individuality. You no longer become a person you become prisoner x or y. Nothing drags people down like the feeling you either don’t matter or you are not important. We at WAM believe everybody matters and everyone is important and especially to God.

Our aim is to help those released from a period of incarceration to become a person again. To embrace their individuality and chart a route back into life with our help and support.

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Lieutenant Colonel Gonin writes in his diary; “There was a strange incident in Bergen-Belsen in 1945 when the British force liberated this Nazi concentration camp. Piles of corpses, naked emaciated women staggering aimlessly, pleased to be liberated, but too weak to comprehend their predicament. I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and I met when working at this concentration camp”.

It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived. Controversially they arrived with a very large quantity of lipstick. “This was not at all what we men wanted, we  were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for those internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on their arm.That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.”

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Way Ahead Ministries seek your prayer and support to help restore those who are caught in a descending circle of hopelessness into life, prosperity and hope through our love to follow Jesus example.

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If you would like to find out more about WAM, or discover ways in which you can help this ministry, contact Kelly on kellya@shkilsyth.org