When you hear about 'partner meeting' you probably imagine an ordinary conference room with a long table and chairs around it. Formality and schedule to follow. That is, indeed, often the case. But this time, we replaced the usual office room with a prison. We spent the whole day in the former Lukiškės prison in Vilnius.

How did we even get there?

For the past year, we have been partners in an interesting project called Climb Over. The project’s topic is juvenile delinquency and the resocialization of young people. While partners from Lithuania and England are directly involved with the youth work, Brodoto is in charge of the creative and digital aspects of the project to make it maximally visible.

The last conference, this November, was organized in Vilnius, Lithuania. We participated in two workshops inside the prison. Also, we got the opportunity to wander around the entire prison and discover an art exhibition - posters created by imprisoned women in Panevėžys Prison and young people who wanted to spread awareness of the stigma about the people who once committed a crime.

Besides that, there was a conference organized for a wider audience whose purpose was to sensitize the audience on the topic of juvenile delinquency. Some of the speakers were ex-offenders who have talked about their examples of how they got out of difficult life situations.

One thing was clear after the conference - without the humanitarian help and good people’s intention, there won’t be many successful examples of people who start their lives again after leaving prison. Inspired by the discussion, we wanted to remind all of you of the second chance that every person deserves. Remember that people did not choose to be offenders, in most cases the difficult life situation led them to it.