Support Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls

The mission of A Beautiful Heart Ministries is to improve the quality of life for formerly incarcerated women and girls by providing resources, educational tools, spiritual guidance, trauma counseling, workshops, and seminars to facilitate change and restore healing. ABHM individualized support and empowerment programs support their broader mission which is to bring awareness to the plight of women and girls behind the walls of federal prisons. 

ABHM believes in centering the experiences of women and girls impacted by the criminal legal system, like those of the founder and director Clover Perez. Clover is a formerly incarcerated woman who served time in federal prison for a white-collar crime. During her time in prison, as she got to know the women and girls incarcerated with her, she learned that there was a brutal familiarity in their stories. Women have been ripped away from their children, and families, causing psychological and financial hardship not just for the incarcerated individual, but for potentially many generations going forward.

The United States of America has the highest female incarceration rate in the world, precipitated by a ten-fold increase in the women’s prison population since 1970. Although the United States of America only consists of 4% of the world’s female population, it houses a stunning 33% of the world's female prison population. While the statistics are well known, the true faces of imprisoned women and girls and the injustice they encounter in the U.S. legal system are far less publicized. Starting at the moment of conviction, women are dehumanized, disempowered, and made to feel less valuable. Shackled and chained, women and girls are shipped off to penitentiaries where they are placed in cells and assigned bunk beds stained with the blood of previous generations' miscarriages of injustice. The effects of incarceration extend far beyond the length of their incarceration – women and girls are often released from prison in worse shape than when they entered, having not received any rehabilitation to address the underlying issues that cause their offense, and now burdened with the additional trauma of confinement. 

A Beautiful HEART Ministries seeks to remove the veil of invisibility that surrounds these women and girls, that are disenfranchised and dehumanized by the criminal justice system. By centering the needs, dreams, and beautiful hearts of formerly incarcerated women and girls, A Beautiful HEART Ministries supports the growing momentum to bring about meaningful criminal justice reform. 

The money raised here will fund ABHM's pilot trauma-informed workshop series. These workshops will facilitate healing from the trauma of incarceration and will provide formerly incarcerated women and girls space to share their experiences as well as providing tools for overcoming their trauma. The $7000 will go towards booking venues, hiring facilitators, paying for workshop supplies, and funding catered lunches. 

If you would like your donation to be tax-exempt, please email [email protected] with your mailing address and a tax-exempt letter will be sent out to you.