Imagine a world where the reverberations of music echo through the most unexpected places, bringing not just melody but hope and transformation. That's the reality Ginny Dogary and MJ Paranzino have created with Liberty Choir, a program that is changing lives within the UK prison system. Join us as we hear about their incredible journey, the ties that bind them to their work, and the undeniable impact of their program. MJ opens up about her brother-in-law's personal battles, shedding light on the deeper connections that fuel their mission, while Ginny's relentless drive has seen the choir grow from a seed of thought to a flourishing community initiative.
When the pandemic struck, the silence of isolation could have been deafening for those behind bars. But not on our watch. We'll share the heartfelt efforts that kept the music and messages flowing into the cells via radio waves, with inspiring tales of resilience and creativity from everyone involved. You'll feel the warmth of the community as we recount how Liberty Choir adapted and thrived, even as the world around them was forced to stand still. The power of a radio program became a lifeline, filling the void with songs, stories, and the voices of volunteers and former inmates, ensuring that no one was forgotten in the darkest times.
As we peer into the future, Ginny and MJ passionately lay out their vision for the Liberty Choir to reach every corner of England and Wales. They discuss the hurdles they've overcome and the ambitious goals still ahead, including their unwavering commitment to criminal justice reform. By sharing stories of mentorship and growth, they invite us to see the potential for a more compassionate and effective system. So tune in, get inspired, and maybe, just maybe, find a role for yourself in this chorus for change.
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Imagine a world where the reverberations of music echo through the most unexpected places, bringing not just melody but hope and transformation. That's the reality Ginny Dogary and MJ Paranzino have created with Liberty Choir, a program that is changing lives within the UK prison system. Join us as we hear about their incredible journey, the ties that bind them to their work, and the undeniable impact of their program. MJ opens up about her brother-in-law's personal battles, shedding light on the deeper connections that fuel their mission, while Ginny's relentless drive has seen the choir grow from a seed of thought to a flourishing community initiative.
When the pandemic struck, the silence of isolation could have been deafening for those behind bars. But not on our watch. We'll share the heartfelt efforts that kept the music and messages flowing into the cells via radio waves, with inspiring tales of resilience and creativity from everyone involved. You'll feel the warmth of the community as we recount how Liberty Choir adapted and thrived, even as the world around them was forced to stand still. The power of a radio program became a lifeline, filling the void with songs, stories, and the voices of volunteers and former inmates, ensuring that no one was forgotten in the darkest times.
As we peer into the future, Ginny and MJ passionately lay out their vision for the Liberty Choir to reach every corner of England and Wales. They discuss the hurdles they've overcome and the ambitious goals still ahead, including their unwavering commitment to criminal justice reform. By sharing stories of mentorship and growth, they invite us to see the potential for a more compassionate and effective system. So tune in, get inspired, and maybe, just maybe, find a role for yourself in this chorus for change.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
Welcome to the View magazine's Rebel Justice podcast. This week we bring you Ginny Dogary and MJ Paranzino, co-founders of the Liberty Choir. Ginny is an award-winning journalist, freelancing for several newspapers and magazines, after working for the Times for several decades. She is an advocate for prisoners and her role in Liberty Choir includes developing the program, lobbying and publicizing and to create events and fundraising opportunities in and out of prisons. MJ is an entertainer, composer and arranger and the passion force behind Liberty Choirs. She directs four community choirs and is responsible for curating the music program, auditioning and training musical directors and accompanists for Liberty Choir. She is passionate about singing and how it is a force for all that is positive in life. Ginny and MJ, it's such a pleasure to have you on the podcast with us today. I'd like to start with something quite easy and general. If you could tell us a little bit about yourselves?
MJ Paranzino:I'm MJ and I am a musician and I like to say I'm a working musician. So I've done everything, I think, as a musician in my career. I started as a singer and entertainer traveling around America and then fell in love with Ginny, came to England. But I'm a working musician, so I write music. I do a lot of community choirs. That's really my bag and I want to get people involved in having a social conscience and singing is a great way to do that because community choirs like doing that.
MJ Paranzino:We started Liberty Choir back 10 years ago. We really started in a forensic psychiatric ward and trying to get into prisons. It actually took 10 years to get the program into prison. Everybody would say, MJ, you can come in and sing, you can't bring anybody else in. But I'm a believer that you need to bring people in from the community so they understand the good, the bad and the ugly of the prison system and recognize what you need to fear and what you don't need to fear, and that people most people are just people and once you do that, everything will change for everyone involved the people that are incarcerated in prison as well as the people from the community who come in to meet all these people every week, no matter what. So there you go.
Ginny Dogary:Go ahead, ginny. I am a journalist by profession. I still do interviews. I was with the Times for 20 years and also worked in Australia on the Sydney Morning Herald there and syndicated my interviews with the great and the good around the world. So I've used some of those skills when MJ and I set up Liberty Choir. So namely the kind of practice of being pushy, persistent, not taking no for an answer and also bringing some pretty incredible people to prisons and to support Liberty Choir as well and not really ever being fearful about anything much. So my role in Liberty Choir, apart from being co-founder, is to develop it in terms of bringing new ambassadors, looking for opportunities both for our Liberty Choir graduates and indeed when they're in prison, but also when they come out.
Ginny Dogary:Without MJ there's nothing, because she is the architect and the creator of this incredible music program where every element has been thought out. I can use an analogy, really, when people say it takes a lot of work to make something read easily, and she's the same. You don't know from the kind of passion and the seeming spontaneity how much work and how much thought has gone into it and how every little exercise in it is a very unobtrusive way of opening multiple doors in those prisoners' horizons expanding, and perhaps she can share a bit of that, because luckily she doesn't have total false modesty syndrome. She's retained her American-ness that way.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So then, my next question is what inspired you to start Liberty Choir and why the prison system?
MJ Paranzino:So, first of all, when I do the community choirs when I first started because I was a gay activist and I understand what it means to kind of be shut out in society, working for gay rights, women's rights, all those types of things I've always been someone who had a social conscience. With my community choirs, it's easy to go do something at Christmas time. It's easy to go do something during the high holidays. The time when people are forgotten is after the high holidays. That's when you should be going, the time when no one cares, and go to places where people don't get visited, whether it's the neurological, royal neurological hospital or vulnerable people.
MJ Paranzino:The worst is prisons. Nobody really goes and sees people in prison, most people, a lot of people that are incarcerated. They've burned a lot of bridges and so they might be cut off from friends and family also. And then, of course, you only hear the most terrific stories in the newspapers. You don't really recognize the regular people that have stumbled and fall for whatever reason and ended up in the prison. So we wanted to do something like that and so I do that for people being involved in the community.
MJ Paranzino:But I also do it because I had a relative, my brother-in-law George, who was a heroin addict, who stumbled in fall, who I loved dearly and every now and then had short stays in prison and as a family member I had lots of trust issues, no matter how much I loved him. It was a rollercoaster ride and I used to say to the therapist who cares for George just for who George is, who doesn't have to have all the baggage that went with George, who will lift him up and raise him up and help him get on with his life, who will help him develop skills, and that's the people from the community. You need to meet people from the community who just take you for the package, for who you are at the time, and will help you get on with your life. So that's why we do Liberty Choir.
Speaker 1:So what is the Weekly Liberty Choir Program?
MJ Paranzino:Liberty Choir is a weekly music program, so it's choir, a group of people singing, and we go into prison every week. The session could be an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, depending on the prison and I bring people in from the community whether they're from my community choirs and now people who just want to volunteer and be a part of the program and that's every week without fail. We'll be there Every now and then. There is a lockdown in the prison. Maybe happens once or twice a year. Even then, we'll try to get into prison and we'll sing in the wings so that the men or women know that we showed up and in that room we're singing. What kind of songs are we singing? We're singing rock and jazz and swing and gospel and classical, new music, all kinds of music, reggae, everything from Bob Barley's One Love to Sinatra's my Way, to Vivaldi's Gloria, to all different types of gospel songs, to Uptown funk, and we're all doing it together even rap. And the astonishing thing is that a lot of people say oh no, I don't sing in a choir, it's not for me. So the question is just come in the room. Just come in the room and see what it's like. I guarantee you'll have a good time, you'll feel like you're free. What I want the men and the women to know is that when they come in that room with people from the community and we're all singing together, giggling and laughing and sometimes crying because music moves you, that you feel like a human being. Every person that walks in that room gets a hug. They get touched, because in prison you don't get touched. Your arm doesn't even get touched. You make eye contact, you feel alive again and with people from the community who are non-judgmental, you're sitting next to somebody who might be a housewife, to someone who's a lawyer, to someone who's works in science teacher, whatever. Most of the volunteers are people of a certain age because they have the time to take and be involved in volunteering and coming in every week. And usually once somebody volunteers, they never stop doing it, they just do it all the time. And so the program begins inside the prison.
MJ Paranzino:And the question is some people who don't understand, who've never been in a choir, they don't understand what you get from singing. Sometimes you have to explain it to them because they don't understand. It is not about how great we can be, it is about just singing Good old, plain old singing together. And what do you learn when you sing together? You learn about addiction, perceiving patterns, math. You learn about social history. You learn about your own identity, inflection of speech and how to talk, how to maneuver. We sway, we sing, we dance, we do steps, we interact with each other.
MJ Paranzino:And so for the young man who's 18, 19, 20, who's in Wandsworth prison, sitting next to somebody on the right who's in their 60s and someone on the left is in their 50s, they're able to realize that you can sit next to anybody, you can commune with anybody. You are not restricted to where you've grown up, who you are, who you think you are, what you think the world has to offer you, that the world is actually your oyster. And so in this room where we're singing together, we are learning life skills. We are without knowing that we're learning these things. We're learning that you're allowed to stumble and fall, and tomorrow you can begin again. And the next day you can stumble and fall and again, the next day you can begin again. And it's that idea that you can learn and you can have the courage to ask for help to learn, and that nothing should be denied you if you're willing to ask for help and how to move your life forward.
MJ Paranzino:All these things are happening in the room when we're singing together, and so that's what we do every week.
MJ Paranzino:And then when the men or women get out and they forge these friendships, they have the choice they can come and join the community choirs or community choirs in their area.
MJ Paranzino:But they've made friendships with these people, and some people need help to orchestrate life once they get out. Some people don't. They have family, they have friends, they have money in the bank, they can get a job, they're on their way, but other people don't have that, and so, because you have a group of volunteers who've gotten to know them every week while they were in prison, when they come out, and if the men or women are willing to contact us, we can set up volunteers around them to embrace them, to lift them up, to help them orchestrate the system. That is quite complex and difficult and would make any person angry, because social workers, probation workers, housing they're all over subscribed to, and so you need friends by your side helping you maneuver through that system. So really, that's what Liberty Choir is all about it's giving somebody a hand, and we use singing as the tool to do that. There you go.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and how could someone get involved? So someone who's listening, who has a big pool, to come and join you? How would they proceed?
MJ Paranzino:Yep, they can just go to the website libertychoir. org and send an email and say they're interested in volunteering, and I think that's the thing. All you have to do is give someone the portal, the door, to do something. Most people want to make a difference in the world. They want to help each other. Like a neighborhood, an old fashioned neighborhood, where you care about everybody on the street, on the block, where you live. All you have to do is give someone the door to open and to walk through and they'll be a part of that and participate. So they contact us through the website and we explain to them what they need to do.
MJ Paranzino:And it's not easy. You have to do a security form, all these other obstacles that are put in front of you, but people do it, they get through it and they start coming once a week. Once you do, you get it. You can't not get it once you come in. And the great thing is the more people.
MJ Paranzino:I always joke with Ginny that I'll never live long enough to bring enough people into prison to see what's going on, but the more people we can bring into prison is the only way that we can change it, because we're better than this. We are better than this. We should be helping people to be able to get on with their lives, and so when they get out, they're ready to go and they can begin again and be a productive part of the society. This idea that somebody should get out, pull up their bootstraps, get on and be one in a million is like a joke. I'm not one in a million, and I can assure you that being incarcerated in prison is not a very healthy situation for people who have, for whatever reason, made a mistake, and if you want to help them get on with their lives and to begin again, this is not the way to do it. And so that's really important, because the more people that come in and see what's going on, they will express it to other people and hopefully someday we'll be able to change the system. But it is a contact charity of going in every week, and so all you have to do is contact us through the website.
MJ Paranzino:But I did want to talk about what happened during COVID. If I could. Of course, it would be great. So when COVID hit March, I came home and I said to Ginny oh my God, we were in three prisons at that point and we were just supposed to go into two other prisons, Brixton and Lewis, and I said, oh my God, we were just stopping, we didn't even get to say goodbye, okay, and now the men and women are going to be locked up all the time for their protection and I have to have some way that I can communicate with them. And I was threatened about it and I thought okay, I'll call Kevin at Radio 1-0. And when I called, Kevin said I was just talking about you, we were trying to figure out a way that you could communicate with the men. I said perfect, radio 1-0 is a radio program at Wandsworth. And I said okay, I want to do a weekly program where I can talk to the men and I'll play some music, but I'll also give people to send messages. And even though we weren't behind the cell for 23 hours and 45 minutes every day, with 15 minutes where you were able to get out either to take a shower or a phone call if you were lucky enough in that 15 minutes to get that, I wanted them to know that other people were thinking of them and could express how they felt also, but to know that they were not forgotten. So I put the word out to the volunteers I said just record something on your phone and I'll put it into the program. And it was amazing.
MJ Paranzino:I always there were some people that did a recording every week. And I think about one person, Christina, late 70s. She said today I picked up a piece of paper and a pencil and I decided I'd try to draw for 30 minutes. I'm not an artist and she'd go on this thing and it was brilliant. Every week she talked about it, how she progressed, and other people would take their phone and they'd walk along the Thames and tell, describe what they were seeing. And then we then expanded that to our celebrity and high profile supporters and then also Liberty Choir graduates, the people that understood what it meant to be locked behind the door.
MJ Paranzino:And then from that program we got on National Prison Radio and NPR and did two programs, the six building blocks to modern music, with Richie, who is a Liberty Choir graduate, and we did that all remotely. And then we did the National Public Radio again, how Music Saved my Life, the one song that goes through you, through life, and Ginny did an interview with them and then I talked about the song at the end and that goes through the whole prison system of those programs and, of course, get repeated because you know, and so it was a great way for people to know about Liberty Choir but also to know that the community has not forgotten about you, and I think that's really, really important. Part of what Liberty Choir is is that know that we know you're there. We know you're there struggling, struggling with shame and guilt, struggling with dealing with a system that is just obsolete, and that there are people that are trying to change it and people who are thinking about you and people that'll be there for you when you get out, not just the people that are getting paid to do that, which are wonderful people, but also people from the community that will want to be there to help lift you up and help you carry on when you get out.
MJ Paranzino:And then with that, during COVID, we did a lot of care packages to the prisons of clothing, pens and paper, and you know they couldn't even get stamps to write their family, remember, they can't call them during COVID. It was just dreadful. And then we also did a staff appreciation outside of Wandsworth because prison officers were going in during COVID and people were getting sick and several prison officers died in the early months and they weren't put on the five essential workers and being taken care of, and so I just thought it was really important that we did things. You know, that said that we recognize you're in this crisis. Anyway, luckily now it's over and as soon as we were able to get back in, we did, and it's grown now to 10 prisons.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's pretty incredible. I was just thinking because you managed to get into the national prison radio and I guess with that more people got to know about your work.
MJ Paranzino:Yes, I mean. Funny thing. You always wonder is anybody really listening to it? Will they come? And then every now and then you have somebody who comes into Liberty Choir at a certain prison. They say, hey, you're MJ, I heard you on the radio, you're Ginny, I heard you on the radio and think, oh right, people are listening to it, they know about it and with the volunteers there are so many volunteer websites now that we list with. It's quite amazing that people will you go into a new prison let's say it's in Islington getting bombarded in Islington with volunteers and trying to weed them into other prisons where we're not getting as many people, or out in Woking and Surrey where we need more people to volunteer. So we've advertised on volunteer websites and all of a sudden they start contacting you and not everybody will do it. They're not sure. It's intimidating to go into a prison and it's intimidating to fill out the 28-page security form and then to take the time to go through the security process. It's not easy to be a volunteer in a prison but there are people that persevere and get through it and that's the thing. I know that once they come in, they'll always be coming in because you'll understand. You'll understand what's going on and how it benefits.
MJ Paranzino:It happens in the room. It's magical. In the room there's these guys let's say men's prison and you think, are they going to get it? This idea that young boys, the only thing you're going to listen to is grime or rap, or the older men, they don't sing a choir all their life. This is like a joke. You get everybody in the room and we're singing and swaying and singing to my way.
MJ Paranzino:And the funny thing, the magic of my way this song may famous by Frank Sinatra with lyrics by Paul Anka, is everybody, men and women, everybody knows the song and everybody knows the lyrics. Even with men and women where English isn't their first language, they know the lyrics to my way. It's like a leveler. And the same with Bob Marley One Love three little birds. Everybody knows it. And that means once you get everybody singing those songs, you can expand out to anything else. We've done music from Hamilton, like I said, Uptown Funk. We've done Price Tag with the rap. That's in Price Tag. And there you go. You have somebody who's 70 doing the rap among somebody who's 18, together giggling and smiling and looking at each other. What can I say? That in itself is amazing.
Speaker 1:It does sound amazing and appealing and it's such a beautiful way to see how music transcends anything, any language barriers. I was actually wondering is it different to deliver your choir programs in women's prisons from men's prisons?
MJ Paranzino:No, it's not different. I think women have a little bit more baggage, that they're dealing with because they're worried about their children Not that men aren't, but they're worried about their children and because women often are dealing with abuse and there's a little bit more that they're dealing with, let's just put it that way. But women are very keen to join choirs and sing, so you're not dealing with the obstacle that says, oh, I can't sing, I've never been in a choir, I'm not going to do it. You don't have to go and convince women, they're going to jump right in where men, you have to convince them. But the reality is, once they get in the room, men or women this sense of freedom and just being normal recognition, you don't have to repent, you don't have to ask for forgiveness. We're just singing together and we're learning together, and that's the magic of it. We're learning camaraderie, we're learning how to be genuine with each other. That in itself is magic, because often some people
MJ Paranzino:You know, I'm very fortunate. I've had a wonderful life. I come from a very, very loving family with great support. You know, I remember one of the first jobs I applied for, I think it was 14, something my father took me and I filled out the application. I came out crying and got in the car and I didn't get the job and I was hysterical and my father says that's okay, they don't know what they're missing. He put his arm around me. You know, I think of all those little things that helped me get through life and handle disappointment and outrage and someone rejecting me, whatever it was, for what Liberty Choir shows you when you're in that room is that you can laugh at yourself, you can giggle, you learn about rejection in a strange little way, because there are some people that are squeaking and squawking and singing with abandon. And something happens, when we all do it together, a magical thing happens as a group and that is magic. So we all are different, we all have issues, we all have things that we're good at or lousy at, and somehow as a group, when we're all together, all those individual things that we aren't good at and things we are good at are put aside as this magical community. That happens. It's sometimes hard to explain, but magic happens in the room and trust happens in the room and safety happens in the room.
MJ Paranzino:When you hand a piece of lyrics out to someone or a piece of music and say it's One Love, Bob Marley's One Love. Most people know the chorus one love, one heart. Let's get together, you'll feel all right. Most people know that when you get to the middle verse some people don't know that and you can see it in the room who can read and who can't read. And it's a safe space in the room because then we can talk about it. We can say just so, you know-
MJ Paranzino:I usually say I use myself an example and I train my MDs and companies also. To be honest, I'll raise my hand. I say just so, you know, I don't like reading. You never kind of embraced it, never my thing. I've always struggled with it. So I want you to know it's a safe space.
MJ Paranzino:You're sitting next to somebody, a volunteer, who may struggle with reading too, or may be very good at it. They may be dyslexic, they may find it difficult. This is a safe space where you can say I'm struggling with the words, can you help me? And you can ask for help. And you know somebody may say to them you know I'm not very good at reading too, but Catherine is, why don't you sit with her? Because she's going to really help you. And that's the same. We'll talk about what a song means or the lyrics. Somebody might say it may be about depression and somebody might say you know, I get depressed and this magical thing happens because of the songs you're singing. And so you might have a three minute discussion about something and it's a leveler, and that's the magic of it in the room, because you're sitting next to somebody who's much older than you but you're being treated on an equal level and you both may have the same problem.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I would love it to know what is your ambition for Liberty Choir for the future.
Ginny Dogary:Oh, yes. So our big mission statement is that we would love you know, you always have to be bold, right, like the charities that say no child born to die and so on, which you can't. It's the wish, isn't it? It's not something you can actually deliver, but what we would like is to have a Liberty Choir in every prison in England and Wales and a network of community choirs for the Liberty Choir graduates which is what we call the men and women we've sung with in prison when they come out and they're in contact with us that a network of community choirs that they could join. And indeed, in our 10th year this is our 10th anniversary on the 1st of April we are in 10 prisons and we actually expanded in seven more prisons last year to make up the 10th and we're looking at another two prisons this year.
Ginny Dogary:So you know we're on a roll and we are working with a lot of community choirs, because the model is that MJ has a business which is MJ's community choirs two in London, the South London Choir, the West London Choir, the Brighton City Singers and the Hastings Town Singers, and initially and for many long years, the volunteers who went into prison, because Liberty Choir is a full circle charity, where the work begins inside prisons in an integrated choir of the singers and people from the community with prisoners, which the seeds that are sown there blossom when the men and women come out and are supported by those same singers and by the Liberty Choir team.
Ginny Dogary:But in order to keep expanding, we couldn't rely just on MJ's community choir members, although there are 100 plus of those who've been security trained and many of them key holders. But what's been gratifying to realise how brilliant it is working with as we expand into new prisons with community choirs in the area. For instance, we're in all five prisons in Surrey and many of those volunteers are people from local community choirs to an, as I say, not MJ's community choir members. Similarly, in Pentonville, where we launched just in January, the volunteers have all come from other choirs, you know the gay men's chorus, the London Philharmonic and so on. So we know that model works. I hope that answers the question a little bit.
Speaker 1:It does. Yes, I was wondering how is it funded.
Ginny Dogary:It's funded by multiple revenue streams, which is obviously the sensible way to go.
Ginny Dogary:So one of our major funders and was our initial funder is the Arts Council, who recognise it as a really important arts, transformative arts programme with marginalised people. We also have very generous major donors such as Ian Hislop, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend of The Who, Stephen Fry all sorts of big names, Matt Hague, new people, thankfully, as they get to learn our work, about our work, really support it. We are also funded by numerous 30 of five I think trusts and foundations, both small and large, and gratifyingly, they keep funding us. So while they, while they can, they do. And also our incredible volunteers fundraise themselves in a variety of different ways. And indeed we are about to launch our great big 10th birthday fundraising bonanza, which will be a six month initiative where our volunteers and people who support Liberty Choir are asking them to do a whole host of different things in order to raise money over a period to really take us into our next 10 years with a really hefty support. I think that's all the difference.
Ginny Dogary:Of course, the prisons themselves, when they can also support us, things such as Islington Council, the Surrey Police Commission. Anyway, I guess the short answer is that we have multiple different funding streams.
Speaker 1:And it's very heartwarming to hear that you've been going on for 10 years, so I hope you managed to carry on for many, many more and that you keep having the support that you need. I was actually going to go to my last question. Because of your experience that you've had in the justice system, if you were in charge for a day, if you were a Lord Chancellor here in the UK, what would you do to make it a fairer system?
MJ Paranzino:Gosh, that's complex. Well, first of all, I would make sure that anybody that's going in for white collar crime it becomes a mentor to a young man or a woman in prison. They need mentors. No one should leave that prison without being able to read and fill out a job application and run a computer. That would be my first step. I could go on and say that people that are addicted to drugs and alcohol should be in a facility for that, and they should be allowed to have two years off where they get to rebuild their life. If they started their drugs at 14, they begin 14 because they need to learn life skills and to begin again.
MJ Paranzino:This idea that they're just going to figure it out is just ridiculous. People that are dealing with mental health should be given help, not waiting for help, not hoping for help, but should be given to help. We are mixing everybody in prisons together, from the addict to mental health to just people making stupid mistakes when they're young and your white collar crime we're not using- we're putting everybody together and then the people that could help, that are incarcerated, aren't being used that way. It's hit or miss and it shouldn't be that way. That's number one. And then, if you want to change those Victorian prisons that need to be refurnished and refixed, then hire a contractor who's going to get a big tax break and some kind of fee and pick out inmates who would learn skills and take a wing at a time and rebuild those wings and at the same time, teach those inmates new skills. When you go in every week, there is absolutely an understanding of the people who could be helped to rebuild their lives and nobody's doing anything. They're just it's just about blocking somebody in a cell and that's it. And the problem is that sounds like a very grandiose statement that that happens. Of course it doesn't happen all the time. Of course there are people as volunteers and people that are working that are getting paid, trying to make a difference, but we're not willing to spend the money to make it happen all the time. All these people that are trying to make a difference, most of them are part-time. They're not getting paid enough. You don't have enough people making a difference that are being employed to help out. We just keep on cutting back and then putting more people in prison in overcrowded Victorian, horrible places.
MJ Paranzino:And I remember when I first started Liberty Choir Program, I had a meeting with the governor, great governor, Kenny Brown, fantastic guy, with Tim Bryant, a fantastic chaplain, the vicar who worked in the prison, both full-time, who believed in Liberty Choir.
MJ Paranzino:That's really how we got started. And I said to the governor if my son was in here let's say 18 months for cannabis after being arrested so many times and I came in I might strangle everybody because I know that that young man will be destroyed and will take him years to be able to cope once he gets out, because the situation is just too horrible, let alone being surrounded by some people that are severely mentally ill, who should be in a totally different institution, and the idea that you're locked up constantly, constant noise and no helper training, because, again, the libraries can't be open all the time, the therapies can't be open all the time. All this, you know, we're just we're not doing the right thing and we're better than this. You know, my big thing is we are so much better than this. We can do better and people need to know. There you go.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, MJ, and thank you Ginny as well, for coming here today. Giving your time. I really hope our listeners will be in contact.
MJ Paranzino:Super. Thanks for having me.
Ginny Dogary:Thank you very, very much and thank you to all the people who are tuning in and please support Liberty Choir if you can.
Speaker 1:And this is our podcast for today. Thank you so much, Ginny and MJ, for joining us and for the passionate work you are doing in prisons. May it keep going for many more years. We are the Rebel Justice Podcast, brought to you by the View Magazine, an independent media platform by and for women in the justice system. For more about the View, please check out our website at theviewmag. org. uk and you will find us on X formally Twitter at Rebel Justice and on Facebook and Instagram as the View Magazines. On LinkedIn, we are the View Magazine. Please like and subscribe to the show. We rely on your support and please do leave us a nice review if you like what you heard and found it informative. Thank you.