Volunteer Yvonne mentors people in prison through ‘sacred’ medium of letters and has done so for over 20 years.
The Prison Phoenix Trust (The PPT), which this year celebrates 35 years supporting the spiritual lives of people in prison, was founded by volunteers and continues to be powered by them.
This Volunteers’ Week, we are proud to celebrate our volunteers and their continuing support to provide many people in prison with hope and healing through meditation and yoga.
One of The PPT’s longest serving volunteers, Yvonne, a former Quaker chaplain at HMP Grendon, has been writing letters to people in prison for 20 years. This mentoring by correspondence is one of the core services offered to people in custody, along with yoga classes and specialist resources such as books, DVDs and newsletters.
Letter writers are not pen-friends; they write little about themselves and instead reflect back to the person writing from prison the insights they themselves are experiencing and allow the writers’ own sense of spirituality to emerge in its own way from encouragement in contemplative practice.
“The key,” says Yvonne, “is openness and being willing to welcome everyone as they are, to work with what they bring and what is making sense to them. I see my role as creating a space for them of quiet contemplation and compassion for them to turn within.”
Yvonne, who grew up in the North Midlands and now lives in Oxfordshire, first came into contact with The Prison Phoenix Trust when she wrote off for some of its meditation and yoga books. Soon afterwards, the books she had ordered provided a lifeline at a time of personal need.
“I experienced an extremely painful life event and I turned to the books,” she recalls. “They got me through was what was really quite a crisis in my life.
“I wasn’t religious at the time but it sparked off a meditation practice that helped me to stay sane through what I was going through. It got me interested in spirituality and religion again. Meditation became a really solid part of my daily routine.
“My own practices have become simpler over the years. I’m no longer looking for new techniques for meditation; a simple practice with the breath is enough.”
Over the years, Yvonne has corresponded with more than 15 people in prison, continuing with some people for many years after their release.
She says she approaches the task of reading a letter from a prisoner – and responding to it – as a spiritual practice.
“I sit for a moment in prayer or meditation before I read the letter. There might be all sorts in the letter – from the profound to the day-to-day. I try to find the most important thing this person wants me to hear. There will usually be one thing I choose to focus on and reflect back to them to encourage their spiritual life to unfold.”
The benefits of this voluntary work are not just for the prisoner. Yvonne – and all who support prisoners in this way – speak of the rewards they receive from the prisoners’ own insights.
Yvonne says: “The thing that really strikes me is the gratitude, not just for the letter but also for the things in life that they don’t take for granted, such as hearing the sound of traffic, having a comfortable bed, choosing your own food, the feeling of rain on your skin…”
“Everything is so quick these days and there’s something quite intimate about writing letters. How special it is to get a letter from someone writing in a non-trivial way – quite a sacred thing. It’s not something we do much anymore. What a privilege it is to write to people in this way.”
The Prison Phoenix Trust Volunteers
Yvonne is one of 16 letter-writing volunteers at The Prison Phoenix Trust. Another 13 volunteers perform roles such as office support and newsletter dispatch and 9 serve as trustees. We are proud to highlight and celebrate them this Volunteers’ Week, and join in thanking all volunteers who together continually propel important causes forward.