When I got a call in the spring of 2024 telling me I’d been accepted into a new workforce training program by Brooklyn Communities Collaborative’s Advancing Opportunities for Justice-Involved Individuals, little did I know that the acceptance wasn’t just letting me know how I’d be spending the rest of my year. AOJI would become the transformative experience I needed following my release from prison in December 2023, where I’d served 12 years for a wrongful conviction.
BCC’s AOJI program collaborates with local workforce training organizations and employers to train justice-impacted Brooklynites for healthcare roles like environmental services technicians and community health workers, which are in high demand at hospitals and community clinics. The goal is to connect people with experience in the criminal-legal system to meaningful, well-paying jobs, while filling critical staffing gaps.
I was still trying to find my footing as I walked into my first day of the environmental services technicians training program, which was developed in collaboration with STRIVE, a nonprofit specializing in job training and career development services. The prison system doesn’t prepare you to re-enter society. It hardens you. It teaches you to survive alone. But AOJI was different. From the start, the focus was on more than job skills. A large part of the program was training participants about emotional intelligence. My STRIVE instructors helped me understand how to work with people again, how to trust, collaborate and communicate. Those soft skills turned out to be the most important lessons of all.
For me, one of the most impactful parts of the program were mock interviews led by a STRIVE workforce trainer. They saw things I didn’t: like how I’d bite my lip before speaking or look down instead of meeting someone’s eyes. She coached me on how to tell my story, and by the end, I had learned how to present my past as an asset. Now I tell people I am someone who knows how to manage crises and can stay calm under pressure. I understand myself to be a leader who guides with empathy.
Today I work at VOCAL-NY, a civil rights and harm reduction organization, as an advocate for people living through the same challenges I’ve faced. The professional skills I learned during the EVS training program gave me the confidence and capabilities I needed to pursue a career path I could’ve never foreseen, using my lived experience to help others.
That’s why, when I got an email earlier this year telling me I’d been accepted into Columbia University’s inaugural Legal Literacy at Work Fellowship, I knew I had the foundation I needed to take this next step with confidence. The goal of the program is to make access to the law more accessible, fair and equitable by combining the lived-experiences of system-impacted individuals with legal expertise. As a LLAW fellow, I'll be working with law students and lawyers to co-author the Jailhouse Lawyers Manual, a resource for many pro se incarcerated litigants.
The results of BCC’s AOJI program speak for themselves. Nearly 90% of AOJI participants graduated, and 70% secured full-time jobs across Brooklyn hospitals and community organizations. We need more programs that treat re-entry as a community commitment, not a punishment. Our borough is full of people who are talented and determined, but just need a chance to start over and contribute. I’m proof that community programs that meet people where they are can change lives.
John Draper is a civil rights organizer with VOCAL-NY and a 2025–26 LLAW Fellow at Columbia University. He is a graduate of the Brooklyn Communities Collaborative’s AOJI program, which trains justice-impacted Brooklynites for healthcare and community leadership careers, and a STRIVE 2024 graduate.
