PORTLAND, Ore. — In her 2019 TEDxPortland talk, Anna Debenham shares her personal journey to wellness and credits a breakthrough that she had when, during a time she grappled with an eating disorder and substance addiction, she realized: "I'm not broken. There is nothing wrong with me. I didn't have an addiction problem, I had a thinking problem."
It is from that personal realization that she was inspired to develop a program to reach out to people who were incarcerated and help them find a new direction in their life and their thinking.
Anna helped found the Portland, Oregon based Insight Alliance, an organization that works with men, women, and youth in the prison system both in Great Britain and in the United States, to help foster new pathways of understanding and self-realization so that the person feels more empowered to change their lives in positive ways. The group uses creativity and the arts to help participants develop new life skills and a better understand of themselves so that while they are in the prison system they make better decisions and when they are eventually released they have a better chance of building more sustainable and stable lives. The group has been credited with helping lower recidivism rates in programs where they have been active, including significant improvements within the youth programs.
The Oregon-based group states their vision to be one that works to foster "kinder, stronger and more equitable communities propelled by individuals leading healthy, prison-free lives".
Anna Debenham's 2019 TEDxPortland talk:
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This article is part of a continuing series presented by KGW in partnership with TEDxPortland.
