Episode 110: Incarceration, re-entry and resilience – with activist and podcaster Bea Spadacini

Bea Spadacini is an activist and writer whose goal is to promote peace and justice by elevating conversations about issues that are often underrepresented in the mainstream media. Originally from Italy, she has lived in the United States for over twenty years and has traveled to Africa and Asia as part of her communications work with humanitarian organizations. Currently she is the Executive Producer and Co-Host of the One in Four Podcast, which focuses on the re-entry process of people who have experienced incarceration.

On this episode, you will hear Bea talk about:

• How her work with Amnesty International made her aware of the issues of mass incarceration and police force against people of color in the U.S., particularly against Black and Latino men – and how it led her to create the One in Four Podcast to highlight the many issues facing formerly incarcerated people who are re-entering society
• The stories of resilience, humanity and community support that she shares on the One in Four Podcast — and the importance of sharing these stories now
• The challenges of running, funding and marketing an independent podcast

Learn more about the One in Four Podcast at www.oneinfourpodcast.com, on Twitter @Bea_Spadacini and @oneinfourpodcast or by emailing podcastoneinfour at gmail.com.

You can also support the One in Four Podcast by making a donation or leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts.

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A full episode transcript is available below.

Carolyn: Today on Beyond 6 Seconds.

Bea: No one that I’ve interviewed so far doesn’t own the crime. They own it but they are past it. They have paid their dues and they wanna do better and they wanna give back and they wanna be contributing citizens in a positive way to societies and to their community. These are inspiring stories of resilience.

Carolyn: Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds. The podcast that goes beyond the six-second first impression to share the extraordinary stories and achievements of everyday people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel.

Carolyn: On today’s episode, I’m speaking with Bea Spadacini. Bea is an activist and a writer who seeks to educate, inspire and build bridges of understanding that highlight our shared humanity. From early on in her career, she has attempted to promote peace and justice by elevating conversations that bring awareness to issues often underrepresented in the mainstream media. Originally from Italy, she has lived in the United States for over 20 years. Her work as a communications professional has taken her to both Africa and Asia where she worked full time for various humanitarian organizations. Her latest project is being the executive producer and co-host of the One in Four Podcast, which focuses on the re-entry process of people who have experienced incarceration. Bea, welcome to the podcast.

Bea: Thank you, Carolyn. Happy to be here.

Carolyn: Very happy to have you here today. So I’d love to learn more about your background in humanitarian work. So, how did you become interested in doing humanitarian work all around the world?

Bea: I studied anthropology in undergraduate and I came to the US. I lived in Italy but I came to study in the United States and I went to Connecticut College and I studied anthropology. So I’ve always been interested in other cultures and learning and really diving into, immersing myself in other cultures, and learning about people and listening, and anthropology is a very interesting discipline because you can do a lot as an anthropologist, many different professions, including being a writer or a journalist and being a development worker, which is what eventually I studied international affairs and journalism as a graduate student in Boston after Connecticut College and then I wanted to go overseas and work in, I wanted to work in Peru, that was like for some reason I wanted to work in Peru but it never happened. I’ve never visited Peru. I was in the US and a lot of people that I realized the jobs I was competing for in some ways, they all had the Peace Corps experience, and at that time I was not a US citizen, so I didn’t know how to do something similar to the Peace Corps. And it was around 1993 I think and I ended up going back to Italy and then in 1994 the Bosnian war started next door to Italy. And really that’s how I got started. In some ways, nowadays it’s different because there’s the internet, people find out about jobs through websites, then there’s the field of international development and humanitarian work, they recruit much more, but in Italy it really started when I was young, it started because of the Bosnian war and I spoke pretty good English at that time because I just had studied here in the States. So one little non-government organization that was working with internally displaced and refugees in Bosnia and in Croatia and in Serbia, they needed someone to help them with doing the assessment for the refugees, someone who spoke English. And so it just, kind of, the stars aligned and that was my first deployment and that’s how I started.

Carolyn: Wow, so you’ve been working, you know, your whole career in humanitarian work was, you know, you’ve done some journalism, social activism and working on social justice issues like working with refugees and other, you know, humanitarian efforts. Now your latest project is a podcast which is actually how we met as we are both podcasters, and your new podcast is now called the One in Four Podcast, and that as we said in your intro really deals with people who have experienced incarceration. So, how did you become interested in that topic? Did that stem out of the humanitarian work that you’ve done throughout your career?

Bea: Yes, for sure because in a way I felt the urge to focus domestically. In the US, I really spent my entire career, I lived 7 years in Africa, East Africa Nairobi, I’ve worked in Ethiopia, I’ve worked in Asia, I’ve worked in India, in Vietnam, different places. And so I really felt the need, especially the last, maybe since 2016 we had an election, lots of things, the country is very polarized, and I decided to focus domestically. To be honest, the issue of mass incarceration and police force against minority groups is something that I was familiar with because my first job in Italy after that experience of Bosnia was with Amnesty International. And so at Amnesty, I remember reading reports about these issues in the States, and I had studied in the States, and I was not aware of it until I went to work for Amnesty in Italy. I was not aware of, you know, the brutality of the system that incarcerates, dehumanizes and really to some extent targets people of color. But by the time life came around, and so a few years ago I decided to do this podcast, and I was inspired by a dear friend of mine who works with young adults here in D.C. that are, I mean, minors that are sentenced as adults. And so they end up being, for example, 17-year-olds, they commit a crime and then they are sent to adult prison and they have a sentence that usually is around 8 years. And I met a lot of these young men, predominantly African American and some Latino men that come back, and the difficulties that they have reintegrating and yet they are still young but the recidivism rate, the probability that they end up in prison again is really high unless there are programs on the ground that facilitate their re-entry process. So, that’s how I got interested, really interested in journalism. I consider every person I interview a real gift to me. So when I started talking to these people, these young men and the organizations that help them too, because it’s both, and I just loved going and getting stories and I kind of couldn’t stop, to the point that I had to stop my full-time job and take part-time jobs to continue to do the podcast.

Carolyn: Wow. So how did you get started finding the people to interview, whether the people who had, were just returning citizens as you say in the podcast, who were just leaving prison and re-integrating into society or the organizations that help them?

Bea: Yeah. The entry point was my friend who was the executive director of an organization called the Free Minds Book Club, which is on our episode 3 I think. And she does Write Nights which are—she brings together the young men who come out of the prison system with the community and it’s based on poetry and books. So the young men become poet ambassadors and they read the poems of their incarcerated brothers and sisters and the community listens and provides feedback. So I got started like that with Free Minds and talking to these young men and then through that I got to know other organizations and then more organizations and of course when I interviewed, you know, interviewing the organizations for me definitely came out of my work internationally because I used to be a communication officer and a press officer for a lot of organizations and I would work with a lot of community based organizations in Somalia, Sudan and I would see what the projects they did, so here it was in my interest was also on the advocates that are on the frontlines helping people come out of the system, helping people in the system, bringing programs inside the prisons. I’m just equally fascinated by the activists that do that, and the kind of, how they conceptualize a nonprofit, what drives them. And a lot of times they are formerly incarcerated people that wanna give back, and themselves they create something but a lot of times they are not necessarily.

Carolyn: Definitely. And your podcast the One in Four Podcast really covers a lot of different topics and looks at this issue from a lot of different angles and I think, you know, having listened to all the episodes that you have out to date, it’s been quite an education for me. I think it’s something that people really aren’t aware of or just don’t really think about unless they themselves or they have someone close to them who has been through the system, been through that experience. So we can talk a little bit about how the podcast is structured. Each episode more or less focuses on a different topic, so you mentioned the poetry and the writing that your friend is doing, it’s one topic. How did you determine some of the other topics that you cover in the episodes?

Bea: Thank you for the question Carolyn. It’s true, it’s thematic. We decided to go thematic, so the one you mentioned is community support and re-entry. We also have families and re-entry, mental health and re-entry, employment or entrepreneurship and re-entry. And I think that’s exactly why we wanted to do a thematic. And now I’m developing, I’m thinking about developing a curriculum that goes with it for schools because I think the idea if you listen to maybe 12 or 14, we have two more to drop and then the season ends and this is audio that I already have. One is gonna be education and re-entry and another one is food insecurity and re-entry. So the idea was really to and I missed a few, there’s probation and re-entry which I would love to do. There is also veterans and re-entry. So the idea was to have a season that if someone listened to all of them which ideally is not longer than 30 minutes, you really get a sense of all the issues that matter that people who come out of jail or prison, especially prison invariably will face. Housing and re-entry is a big one; housing and mental health are the biggest issues and addiction as well. The mental health episode has been for us the most downloaded episode. Mental health and re-entry talks about trauma. And I’m not sure why, but I also unfortunately one of the people we interviewed in that particular episode passed, so I think that there maybe also, I don’t know for a fact, but I know a lot of people really wanted to hear his voice, and a lot of people in D.C. He was quite a well-known young man with a lot of promise and unfortunately he passed. Yeah, so another person that we had as a guest also passed and I’m saying this because really the challenges and the barriers to re-entry are real to the point that people sometimes don’t make it. Some people make it and are very successful and are an example and become a beacon of light to others who are still inside the prison or who are coming out because they can aspire to become like that and there’s many successful returning citizens. But unfortunately the barriers are real and sometimes people end up homeless or end up with more addiction problems or there is not enough services or may end up in the jail or prison system again.

Carolyn: Yeah, there are so many, as you said, very real barriers, and just so many of them, so some of the topics that you were just mentioning, you have other topics that you cover in this season of the podcast and it’s just so many things that people are up against when they’re re-entering into society like that.

Bea: Yeah, it’s very interesting, you know. One thing you know, in the sea of podcasts, both you and I are podcasters and I love the medium, it’s so intimate, it’s so personal. For me, if I cover a topic that is sensitive it also gives anonymity. You don’t have to see the picture, you don’t have to see a person, but you can hear their voice. And you have it, and a lot of people listen to it with their earbuds, so it’s really like talking very personally. I love the medium but it’s not a sexy topic. There’s a lot of interesting podcasts out there, but people generally if they hear, you know, prison or … it’s not a crime story, those are very popular.

Carolyn: Right.

Bea: It’s real people’s lives, real stories of people who have committed crimes and who have gone to prison and who are coming out. But a lot of people have certain ideas and perceptions of what these people are. And these people, some of them have committed violent crimes. There’s no doubt about it, but no one that I’ve interviewed so far doesn’t own the crime. They own it but they are past it. They have paid their dues and they wanna do better and they wanna give back and they wanna be contributing citizens in a positive way to societies and to their community. So, really even though it’s not sexy, I think these are inspiring stories of resilience. And what I’ve learned to do in the production process, and I would love to do another season, put more humor in it, because humanizing is also bringing out the humanity of someone. The people we interviewed have powerful stories but they are funny people. They have a sense of humor and to bring that out in different conversations and not just the heavy stuff but also the everyday stuff. What they like to do when they came out the first time they were out. How was it when they first met their children for instance? What do they do with their children now? What are some of their favorite times? I remember interviewing someone whose parent were incarcerated and he spoke to me about a visit that he had with his mom after many, many years that she had been inside and how they spent time under a tree when she came out and it was just a beautiful day. They gave me a setting and he said, you know, that was the most incredible two hours that I’ve ever spent with my mom and I was so happy that there were no guards interrupting me and we were outside in a park under a tree. It felt so surreal and I just saw that picture and he was genuinely happy and I just thought this is beautiful. So the stories are sad but also not so sad because there’s beauty in each one of them.

Carolyn: You’re really bringing that humanity into an issue that tends to dehumanize people in many different ways.

Bea: I mean think about it: when we put people in prison, we want to put them away from society and lock them and forget about them. But Nelson Mandela and other people often talked about assessing the civility of a society in how it treats its citizens that are not the wealthiest, the poorest and also the ones that have made mistakes, so going into the prisons really tells you a lot about a society. So I have gone recently, I haven’t visited that many prison because I’ve dealt with re-entry, but just about a week ago, I have been collaborating with an incredible young man from Nigeria who is a singer and he’s a global prison ambassador, in fact I’m gonna release that episode soon, it’s part of the audio that I have but I’ve done that episode months ago. But we started collaborating and he’s been doing a few concerts. We did two juvenile detention centers and one jail here in Maryland and he brought the music, and through the music, he’s also a motivational speaker, and it’s really powerful. And I was inside the detention center and we had about 60 men and he was really powerful because the transformation even, and especially the music through the arts through it’s the humanization because these are regular people, they have made a mistake and they are paying for it rightly so but at the same time being in there and dehumanizing them does not serve any good purpose because 95% of people who are incarcerated do come back to society. So, we wanna make sure they come back healthy and ready to really restart their lives and contribute.

Carolyn: Right. Yeah, it’s obviously, you know, good for the person but it’s a social issue as well. It’s good for society. You want people who are fully capable of contributing in different ways to society to be able to have those opportunities to do that.

Bea: So there is a movement lately I mean it’s not lately but I have been tuning into this cultural healing, this idea of cultural healing which is something that I’m really interested in personally maybe because of the work I’ve done overseas too. But how do we find alternatives to prisons and there are many models in the US. There are different states that have implemented it especially for nonviolent offenders instead of having them go into a jail or a prison, to have alternative models of rehabilitation in the community and that is about cultural healing because it also involves the victims of the crime and it’s restorative justice and it’s bringing together the entire community and I’m fascinated by that and I think again these are stories of resilience that can inspire and bring hope.

Carolyn: Yeah, absolutely. Wow, so, you have several episodes of this season of the One in Four Podcast, I’ve listened to those episodes and the way that you put them together it’s very much in a narrative style. You’ve got different clips around the theme of interviews from people, interspersed with different people narrating and really putting that full story together for each episode. And as a podcaster, I always have such an appreciation when I’m listening to episodes like that I think like, oh my gosh, like so much work and time and effort really went into each episode to just make it come together as a powerful story encapsulated in each episode. So, I’d love to know from your perspective now having worked on this podcast for many, many months, what did you feel like was the most challenging thing about creating this podcast?

Bea: The most challenging thing is not having a team of producers like an NPR podcast would have. So like you I listened to many podcasts, one of them is The Daily or On Being with Krista Tippett and then I hear when it closes the episode how many people have worked on that podcast and I think to myself, literally, if I had even half of those people or just a little bit of funding, I could make this thing rock! Because, you know, we have done an incredible job in just really a team of five and not everybody works on it, you know, as much as probably as I do simply because I’ve committed to it and I’ve wanted to see it through, but the biggest challenge is really not having enough people, enough time, enough resources. For me, it’s also an issue I would really love and I’m thinking about how to build around this also the training of more returning citizens as journalists, as reporters, as sound engineers, as producers, really building the skills for proper journalism. A bit like The Marshall Project, I’m very ambitious I know what’s out there that is good. I don’t wanna duplicate. I wanna add value but the podcast is an entry point. For me, it’s bigger than just the podcast.

Carolyn: Yeah, definitely. What are your larger goals? You said it’s bigger than the podcast but sort of what are your larger goals for either the podcast itself or for these issues that you are bringing to people’s attention?

Bea: Yeah, I’m definitely committed to these issues and to learning more because it is for me I’m still a newbie in this sector, my experience was overseas on justice issues. And also I’ve visited for example prisons in Rwanda and know very well the genocide story and the post genocide story there, but here it’s unique and there’s many other issues. So, as a journalist I think or someone who has trained in journalism, I love learning. So, the more I feel like there’s so much I can uncover here, but I think like getting to the end of the season one, I’m hitting the pause button for a few months and really trying to rethink strategically because as I said before and I wanna emphasize, I don’t want to just add content for content’s sake. There is a lot of content out there. We are inundated with information and even on these issues, there are very good podcasts. I know myself of at least 15 of them and so for me after this journey precisely because it does take a long time to produce if you do it well and if you do it with music and you go out and collect audio in different situations. I remember when I was in someone’s car, there are driver, they have a business and I was driving with them and that’s really the kind of stories I like to do. But it has to add value and it has to add value to criminal justice reform or criminal legal reform, I don’t know if justice is the right word, but to that and to the re-entry, to all the aspects or to sentencing, reforming sentencing or juvenile justice or women in incarceration, there’s a lot of areas that I need to understand where would I add value so that I don’t duplicate, and really make a difference that is useful. That’s where I’m at, and I don’t have, I think I really need to dedicate time to thinking rather than just doing.

Carolyn: That makes sense. I imagine that you’ve learned quite a lot from doing this season of the podcast just covering so many different topics and talking to so many different people. Are there any particular areas that are jumping out at you or is that really just something as you said you need to take the time to kind of assess where you could add the most value?

Bea: I would love to connect my experience all the way up to this issue. So I feel the US has a lot to offer because it’s not only the country that incarcerates the most people in the world and also with the proportion of people incarcerated and population it’s the highest mass incarceration in the world, but I feel there’s also community based organizations that do incredible work here that can be useful for other countries to learn from here. So I am thinking my experience informs the way I think so my journey up until now informs the way I think. The collaboration with the young man from Africa really inspired me because I spent 7 years in East Africa, I know some of the challenges there and I would love to work with him more on these issues particularly related to prison, incarceration, re-entry, juvenile justice and the US being one area but also looking at other issues. As he was telling me when we were inside the detention centers a few weeks ago, in Sub-Saharan Africa, prison reform is not even an issue. I mean it’s just not. So people are in very overcrowded prisons with absolutely no rights. The only organization that goes in there is the International Red Cross sometimes, but even in Rwanda when I went there it’s just completely overcrowded and nobody checks on whether the human rights of these people are even respected or not, with the exception of a few organizations. So, the conversation has to be—we talk about cultural healing I would love to do something that is more global.

Carolyn: That’s so interesting to bring what you’ve learned about the, as you said, criminal justice reform or however we call it in the United States and…

Bea: Yeah, criminal legal reform. I’m learning too because I used to say criminal jus—and you know the terms, the words are really important because returning citizen, it is part of the conversation. I remember the first time saying returning citizen, and I was talking to someone who was a returning citizen and he asked me Bea, where am I returning from? Was I not a citizen when I was in prison? Was I never a citizen before? What am I returning to? So even though it’s the most dignified term that it’s okay to use and no one a lot of people don’t mind it, a lot of returning citizens or people coming out of the prison system, but the terms we use and so criminal justice reform there is an assumption that there is justice but unfortunately there isn’t always justice. Reforming the legal system right now it’s very punitive. It’s based on retribution and it needs to change if we really want to improve collectively as a society and to be more compassionate. You know, I’ve been a victim of crime myself here in the US at gun point and I remember this was many years ago. I wish I had gone to court and witness and could have said something. These were very young men that attacked me, but I didn’t. I didn’t wanna go to court and I didn’t even wanna—I was ambivalent. I didn’t want them to be sentenced. I knew about some of the issues but right now I would go to court and I would advocate for a different type of punishment.

Carolyn: Wow. Yeah. It’s as you said so many different vocabularies and language and it’s something that you hear a lot in listening to your podcast, you know, there are a lot of terms that are certainly knew to me to describe all of the different issues, but wow.

Bea: If I can also add something for your listeners, the point is that we call it One in Four because one in four adult Americans has a criminal record, but the audience is really the three out of four that have not yet been impacted by the criminal legal system. So the idea is each one of us has a role to play in however shape or form and that’s why having the names of the organizations or in your own stage wherever you are looking at organizations that help people coming out of the prison system, whether it’s shelters or workforce development. There’s also a lot of for example, the restaurant industry is an industry that does employ a lot of people coming out of the prison system, so maybe patronizing restaurants that do hire returning citizens if they are open about it, or firms that have hiring policy that gives second chances. I know many in this area in Maryland and D.C. and Virginia firms and companies that we all shop to but for me knowing that Walmart hires returning citizens or Giant hires returning citizens or the Marriott hires returning citizens is an incentive for me. If I have to pick a supermarket or if I have to pick a hotel to stay I’m gonna go to the hotel where I know they give second chances. So, that or, if you have a skill that you are really good at something even needing, you can go and volunteer in a women’s shelter and they are always looking for people to connect and to help re-entry.

Carolyn: Absolutely and you really highlight a lot of those opportunities and many of those organizations that are doing great work like that in your episodes, and I think it’s wonderful to just let more people know, let those three out of four people know that these organizations are out there and they are really helping to support people as they re-enter into society and really supporting that way.

Bea: Right.

Carolyn: Wow.

Bea: So I don’t know if you want me to say something about production a bit more.

Carolyn: Yeah, I mean, oh gosh, I mean as a podcaster I kinda nerd out about it so I really enjoy hearing about the production side, yeah, I’d love to hear about that.

Bea: I mean I think for me what I’ve discovered that I didn’t realize is just the music and the sound as adding texture and depth to story. Like, storytelling with audio is very different. I’ve been a writer and I’ve done a lot of stories with writing and photography often working with professional photographers and so I see the value of the visuals with the writing and writing for me is like quilting, really like pulling, stitching a story together. But with audio is, when I’m scripting is similar but the sound just really adds the mood and the ambience and it really creates like an altered state! I love it! And so if I could do another season, I would love to learn a lot more about sound and how to use sound in a clever way.

Carolyn: Yeah. I really enjoyed the music that’s part of your podcast. As you said it just fits the mood really well. It helps bring the story to life and prepare the listener for what’s coming and just help reinforce what’s being shared.

Bea: Well, I always, you know, I don’t know if you ever listen to The Daily with Michael Barbaro of the New York Times but their use of music is phenomenal. Yes, of course, they have what 25 producers maybe, but I think just listening to that is very interesting and how they use music. They often have long pauses with music which really it’s almost sometimes I think the episode is over and then boom it comes back in. So I told my sound engineer, just do it like The Daily and he’s like, Bea are you kidding me? I’m like just do it like The Daily because I have worked with a sound engineer and it happens to be my next door neighbor. I met him totally coincidentally and I was telling him that I was doing a podcast, and this was over a year ago, and he’s like well why don’t I help you? And then little did you know he’s been on the journey with us for about a year plus.

Carolyn: Wow. Yeah, so you’ve been doing this podcast I think at this time that we are recording, we are recoding this in March 2020 so I think it’s been what almost a year exactly or close to a year? Wow.

Bea: Yeah, a year and I’ve only been able to drop about an episode and sometimes a side cast per month and not more than that. My goal, if I could do it, if I could do it in terms of money and with a grant, I would like to produce every 2 weeks. I mean there’s really a ton of stories that one could do but then again for me like I said before let’s add value, let’s not just add stories, let’s add value. And I think I could do another season just on themes that I haven’t covered which might be what we have to do, but I’m also looking at women particularly or juveniles or there’s some issues in the US prison system and criminal system that we could really go and zoom in.

Carolyn: Oh, absolutely. There’s a lot to cover even between some of the topics you’ve mentioned just in our conversation today, there’s just you know so much on this issue.

Bea: So I’m from Italy, you said that at the beginning. When I was in Italy last time I think it was last year at Thanksgiving, I decided because it has become a bit of an obsession the topic of the podcast, so I reached out to the prison in Milan, our jail, and I ended up having an interview which I pushed out on an Italian, in English and Italian on a paper in New York and I interviewed the warden of that prison and I was really keen on finding out, I didn’t visit, he told me next time I go to Milan, you know, I could go and visit. He told me the very big issue there is overcrowding but for example in Italy they don’t have the bail system because we have as you know Mafia, the organized crime, and so the warden told me he felt like if we had bail, the people that are involved with organized crime would all be able to pay bail and leave. So they don’t have it. They only keep inside what are deemed to be violent offenders, yeah. Comparing all the systems is fascinating.

Carolyn: Yeah, interesting to see how each country handles that, what their approach is.

Bea: Yeah.

Carolyn: What kind of feedback have you received from either listeners or people who have been involved in putting the podcast together?

Bea: Well, we had the end of season event at PRX Podcast Garage last Saturday and I’m gonna put that out. We have a behind the scene conversation, so I’ll put it as a finale of this, so maybe end of March beginning of April I’ll have that out, and then totally like that’s it. But the feedback, because some people, I did invite some listeners at that event. We did capture some three out of four people and like you, they said they learned a lot and they were very glad we put this out and they binged on like all of them and they felt like they got a whole like class of like understanding of re-entry and really open the eyes. We did get that. Of course the people in the justice space are not our audience. The people who are returning citizens are not our audience. Their families some of them might be our audience but generally they know some of these issues. Maybe they don’t understand all of the challenges that their loved ones are facing when they come out for a number of reasons. Maybe they are not as close because being incarcerated sometimes also depending on why someone gets incarcerated, there may be strains with the family, may be relationships are broken as well. I got feedback from PRX a while back when I was at She Podcasts that we should drop more frequently in order to get our numbers higher, but that’s hard to do when you have a small team and everything is pro bono. We did get a donor during the first season and I was extremely happy. We ended up paying the sound engineer and our returning citizens that have been very involved with us and I would love to get more sponsorships. So the donor liked it, I mean they felt it was important enough to invest and cut us a check, so that we could keep on going.

Carolyn: That’s great. Are there grants and things like that for this type of work that you can go after?

Bea: Yeah, there are. There are grants for media and justice but it’s competitive. Because for example, I mean I’m not a formally incarcerated person, I mean not yet, hopefully never, but I created a platform, but it makes sense that people who have the experience of incarceration, they are the ones producing and co-hosting and this is what we want to do and on our team we have 2 formally incarcerated people but at the same time a man and a woman who are close they are like family now, but they are also busy trying to make a living so if I cannot pay them, you know, they are with us whenever they can, they are with me whenever they can and I mean anytime I need their help or they have to go get a story, they’ll do it, but I would like to pay them.

Carolyn: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Bea: Yeah. So there are grants but they are not easy to get. I have applied for one, I’m looking at others. I think now that we have a whole season and a better idea of what’s out there, what we have covered, what we would like to cover more, and we are shaping it little by little, I think the more grants we apply to, the better they will be eventually it’s a matter of time. I think I have to try a hundred times and eventually I’ll get one.

Carolyn: Yeah and hopefully now that you have the full season almost completely published that that will have, you know, that body of work and hopefully you will be able to bring in, you know, sponsors and grants and more funding so that you can continue to help raise this issue and tell these stories.

Bea: I would like to get some sponsors because it could be also just, you know, like a thousand dollars for an episode and we could do pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll, give some publicity or give thanks, you know, recognition, it has to be aligned with the podcast. For me, the value of whoever is a sponsor, whether it’s a business that gives second chances to returning citizens or like the first donor we got, a yoga place and a mindfulness place — they tried to bring mindfulness in yoga to underserved communities so they really felt like they wanted to invest in this topic because they believe it’s important, so that was great. You know, it could be someone with a business that just feels like this is a worthy topic and it’s not a business that profits from people who are in the system.

Carolyn: Absolutely. Yeah, well, I certainly hope that if you are out there listening to this podcast and you have a passion for this topic, whether you are a business or just an individual who really cares about communicating this topic, please reach out to Bea!

Bea: Reach out to me, I will put out a website soon. I will put Patreon, but I was hesitant to do that now until I figure out season 2 but, yeah, if you are someone who decides that you wanna support this, hit me up because that would enable us to really run more with season 2.

Carolyn: Very good.

Bea: And keep the production high.

Carolyn: Absolutely. And what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you now so they can either, you know, talk about sponsorship or even if they just wanna learn more about the work you are doing?

Bea: Sure. We have an email podcastoneinfour@gmail.com and soon we should have the website up which will be oneinfourpodcast.com. Yeah, but podcastoneinfour@gmail.com you can reach us.

Carolyn: Perfect. Thank you so much Bea for being on my show. Is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything else that they can help or support you with?

Bea: If you could listen and leave us a review, if you learned something and you feel it is valuable, I would really welcome a review. It’s very important as podcasters to get reviews and to subscribe to the podcast because that will help with sponsors.

Carolyn: Okay, perfect. Thanks so much Bea for being on my show today.

Carolyn: Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help us spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend. Give us a shoutout on your social media or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of our episodes on our website and sign up for our free newsletter at www.beyond6seconds.com. Until next time.