INTERVIEW The unfi nished journey
Joint CEO of Outsourcery, Piers Linney, appeared as The Secret Millionaire on Channel 4’s prime time documentary last month, broadcast 10th May. But when the filming finished it was far from a wrap as the experience proved to be one that could not easily be left behind.
literacy levels. “Learning to read can be a life changing event as it opens a number of doors for people who feel they cannot break the self-destructive chain of events their life has taken on,” said Linney. “Reading empowers them, reduces the feeling of helplessness and provides a means to change the course of their lives themselves. Education is absolutely fundamental to social mobility and if you can’t read then you don’t have a chance.”
Piers Linney I
t is not easy to convey a personal experience that took 10 days and over 80 hours of footage to capture, says Linney, who intends to carry on the good work following his nine days of filming in Wolverhampton’s Brinsford Young Offenders’ Institution. “Filming the programme was a personal, private and public journey. A journey which has yet to be completed,” he said. “Personally, it was an eye opening experience, and before ‘my time inside’ I had no idea that so many young people could not read, which meant they had very little chance of finding a job or even learning to drive. The probability of illiterate young
men ending up back in prison is very high. Unlike those who believe that prisoners deserve everything that they get, my view is that you should not write people off because they have made a mistake if they take responsibility for their actions and seek to better themselves.”
Charity work Linney worked with charities that operate inside the institution and was particularly drawn to a literacy scheme called Toe by Toe, a mentoring system that sees literate prisoners tutor those that cannot read. This is important because 60 per cent of the prison population have low
Many people have asked Linney whether the experience is as shown on TV in terms of the accommodation, budget and the process of deciding who to help. Is it for real? “I can assure you that it is,” he said. “It’s a lonely journey you embark on without contact with family, friends or business partners to alter the trajectory of your thinking. You do have a team of five or so professionals with you 12 hours a day with a project to deliver, but each new day brought a surprise. Realising that my budget equated to £8 per day for food, utility bills, phone bills, entertainment and travel was both alarming and a reminder of the financial pressures currently faced by many people for many reasons.”
The experience left Linney feeling isolated and cut off from his family. In many respects he had become a
2011
Marriot St. Pierre, Chepstow,Gwent. 16th June 2011
40 COMMS DEALER JUNE 2011
prisoner himself. “It is not often that my smartphone and laptop are taken away from me for such a long period of time,” he commented. “However, the Secret Millionaire team did make a special concession when they allowed me to make a quick Microsoft Lync video-call to my young daughter and then heavily pregnant wife. But that was it. And although I was filming for 13 hours a day for nine days, I did miss my family, the comforts of home that you can take for granted, my bikes and access to the Internet.”
Disadvantaged kids The experience led Linney to believe that we are all at the mercy of our heritage, beginnings, status, self esteem and environment, and not everyone has the required strength or support that is often needed to break out of a destructive situation. “After talking to prisoners and learning about their difficult upbringings, exclusions from school at the age of 13 and abuse, you can begin to understand why they have ended up in the criminal justice system,” added Linney. “The challenge everyone at Brinsford talks about is to ensure that they don’t come back, despite the high rates of youth unemployment.
“There must be hundreds of Daniels and Roberts – prisoners who I committed to help both during and after
the programme – who have talent, drive and skills, but just had a difficult hand of cards dealt at birth. It was most sobering to consider that had my life taken some different turns, I could have been in their situation and on the other side of the camera. Many of the kids I grew up with did experience prison.”
As well as Toe to Toe, Linney also meet Alan Smith who runs Brindsford’s arm of the national charity, Storybook Dads, which enables prisoners to record bedtime stories on CDs that are then sent home for their children to listen to. Storybook Dads provides parental contact for the approximately 160,000 children separated from parents in prison. “The work of the charities was moving and the dedication and selflessness of the workers was a lesson to us all,” Linney commented.
“Unfortunately, only two of the four charities I supported were given air time due to filming limitations, so I would like to mention the sterling work that Engage Youth Empowerment Services (EYES) and The African Caribbean Community Initiative (ACCI) also do. I have funded a performing arts show for EYES and a group holiday to Butlins for the service users of ACCI, who all suffer from mental health issues.”
Read more about Linney’s experience on his blog:
pierslinney.com
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