Creating opportunities for prison leavers
He's a man with a passion for prisons and, more specifically, a passion for helping to keep people out of them. He's the founder of the charity Onwards and Upwards, which started XO Bikes, a company that trains ex-offenders to fix bikes and sell them.
XO bikes provide skills and mentoring to help those released from prison, giving them opportunities and a support network to help avoid reoffending.
The origin story of XO bikes
I used to have an advertising agency and ended up volunteering in Brixton prison through my local church. When I arrived I found myself feeling like I was supposed to be there. Speaking to the prisoners, I learnt a lot about their circumstances and the struggles when leaving prison and getting back onto the right track. When volunteering, I would see great guys excited to leave and the prospect of a new life return in a few months, mainly because no one would give them a job. That’s when the penny dropped, and I decided to leave my agency and set up Onwards & Upwards to train and employ prison leavers.
Better supporting ex-offenders
The cliché of ‘lock them up and throw away the key’ doesn’t work, as most of these prisoners will re-enter society once they have served their time. Not many people want to commit a crime; it’s often something they resort to for a number of reasons. A caring society would asses those reasons and try to address the root cause rather than just warehousing people and not caring about the repercussion that might have in the long run.
Rehabilitation is also so important, the education piece, the aspiration piece, the opportunity piece, self esteem, all of that stuff. And we can do that, we can help stop people reoffending.
What’s next for Onwards & Upwards
Currently, we are just XO Bikes, but we have just finalised plans to open an XO Barbers. This will be a shop in Shoreditch where all the barbers were trained eight months prior in Brixton Prison. The training programme is launching in early 2025, and the shop will be open in the summer. We are also currently planning the opening of XO Clobber, focusing on clothes, and will partner with Wormwood Scrubs Prison for that training programme later in 2025.
We have also set up ‘The Gang for Good’, a mentoring programme to help young people on the trajectory of ending up in prison see an alternative route in life. The programme runs by them speaking to people who have been to prison and turned their life around, but also someone who has had a fortunate life. We hope that the three-way life experience sharing and mentoring will benefit all parties involved.
