Watch Our New Short Film!
We're excited to share a powerful new film created in collaboration with the Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA) and Media Trust.
RIFT WISE
Project
In February 2023, thanks to a successful funding application, RIFT Social Enterprise launched the award-winning WISE (Women into Self-Employment) - a two-year action learning project aimed at developing, delivering, and learning from a self-employment offer tailored for women with convictions within the female prison estate.
WISE Vision
“To learn from women about the challenges they face and seek their input to find solutions … testing and discovering what works.”
Over the two years, WISE achieved significant milestones, uncovering impactful insights across key areas:
-
The impact on women who participated in the project.
-
The effect on prison staff and prison culture.
-
Systemic outcomes that have informed recommendations for policy and practice.
We’re proud to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of our MEL (Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning) team, Confluence, who conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the WISE project. If you’d like to read the full evaluation report, please reach out to Jemma, Project Lead.
Project Extension
Building on the success of this award-winning initiative, we are excited to receive an additional year of funding to extend the project. This extension enables us to further explore innovative ways to support women into self-employment while addressing systemic barriers within the prison estate.
At RIFT Social Enterprise, we’re committed to a future where individuals with convictions are not held back from reaching their potential. By tackling the unique challenges they face in securing stable employment, WISE allows us to deepen our impact, particularly for women, and drive meaningful change across the prison system.
