Human Kindness Foundation

"Headquartered in Central North Carolina, Human Kindness Foundation is run by an all-volunteer board of directors and two paid staff."

"In 1973, Bo Lozoff and Ram Dass came up with the idea to help prisoners to use their prisons as ashrams if they were tired enough of seeing themselves as convicts just biding their time until they were released.

"Ashram is a Sanskrit word meaning “House of God.” In the East, an ashram is a place where people live for some period of time in order to strengthen their spiritual practice and self-discipline. Many ashrams are very strict. Residents, or ashramites, abide by an exhaustive schedule and live very simply, without many comforts or luxuries.

"Ram Dass funded the work, and Bo began corresponding with prisoners and, with their feedback, developing spiritual materials especially suited to that environment.

"Neither Bo nor Ram Dass ever imagined that hundreds of thousands of hard-core convicts would be interested in such an idea. But within the first couple of years, the letters began pouring in and have not stopped to this day. By 1975, the Prison-Ashram Project had become Bo’s full time job, and that same year Sita committed herself to the work as well. Bo & Sita visited over 500 prisons, leading thousands of workshops, before Bo’s death in 2012. Bo’s books, in particular the well-known We’re All Doing Time, have become “the convicts’ Bible” in institutions around the world. These books, as well as CDs of Bo’s music and talks, are sent free of charge to any prison inmate who requests them... The Prison-Ashram Project has a sister organization in the UK" called the Prison Phoenix Trust.

In 2007 they invited Stones Circle to operate out of their buildings in the wilderness.

Board
Accessed June 2013:


 * Pam Clarke
 * Sita Lozoff
 * John Collins
 * Mike Thumm
 * Chris Canfield

Contact
Web: http://www.humankindness.org