A few years ago, we took the simple proposition that prisoners growing food inside prisons has a marked benefit on health, behaviour and outlook. We reinforced that idea by working with Cisco to provide learning in prisons (in horticulture, enterprise, life skills, and computing) and a network of social businesses outside the walls to offer extended learning opportunities and jobs.

The programme started as a simple prison gardening project in the disused exercise yards of the resettlement wing at Dartmoor Prison. In an exceptionally bleak environment Eden (in partnership with the prison and other supporters), has created fruit, vegetable and healing gardens; produce grown is delivered to local people and schools in Princetown, itself a marginalized and deprived community.

Now extended to a number of other prisons, the programme has become less about a simple prison activity and more of a community enterprise, concerned with resilience and prosperity. In partnership with the Cisco-supported Prisons ICT Academy (PICTA), a blended learning programme is being developed, to enable prisoners not only to grow, nurture and harvest food, but to support a range of associated life skills useful on leaving prison.

Our first example of a networked social business is an integrated scheme at Torbay, based on horticulture and farming. Associated with an urban regeneration project in the town centre, this great project is set up to receive people released from prison who wish to develop their skills further, gain recognised qualifications and/or broaden their knowledge to include marketing, distribution, sales, teaching, catering, construction and maintenance; this scheme also provides training, volunteering and employment opportunities for those at risk of offending, homeless people and those on probation, including providing an alternative sentence to custody. The network of social businesses within Growing for Life is set to expand and there is potential to evolve the scheme elsewhere in the UK.

For more information see http://www.edenproject.com/whats-it-all-about/projects-and-programmes/growing-for-life.php