Co-working space for ex-offenders

St.Lukeis a NGO – charitable organization with Public Benefit status working in Riga, the capital of Latvia with individuals being released from incarceration and others affected by crime. St.Luke provides reintegration planning and support of ex-offenders. St.Lukedevelopedreintegration programma together with Riga municipality.

Objective is to help those, who once lost themselves and damaged their and other's lives, to discover the new abilities inside themselves and in society around ones. Aim is to understand factors that can reduce the chances an individual will re-offend and offer open and inclusive place to receive support. St.Luke develops three main activity areas; where we believe combination of all of them ensure effect:

a) Social service: Bureaucratic procedures – guiding to suitable agencies and services, legal support; and Psychological/pastoral help – assisting to make constructive plans for their lives after release;

b) Cultural activities, including supportive programs that would nurture human growth and healing;

c) Work skills reinstatement, where in its activities, St.Luke meets principles of circular economics, for example carpentry workshop deals with recovered wood and restoration. The aim is to give a new life to people as well as to materials they are working with.

As additional aim is a need to educate the community. While the direct damage of crime to victims is fairly well understood, less widely understood is the secondary damage done by the crime and by our society's response to it. Committing the crime, the process of prosecution, judgement, the incarceration can all be traumatic and can lead to stigmatization, shame and remorse. The offender transforms remorse for the event into a generalized shame about who he is. The remorse moves from being a positive motivator for change to being an impediment to change.