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Alex (on the right in the photo) win's his first award for Bars in their eyes. This was published in Student Volunteer Englands enews

The story

Alexander Simmonds won a Gold Award for Leadership, Dedication and Achievement.

Alexander Simmonds a postgraduate student from Nottinham Trent University is studying to be a barrister on Nottingham Law Schools Bar Vocational Course. While studying Alex set up a project called 'Bars in their eyes'. This project involves students giving highly interactive sessions to prisoners in local prisons to give them the opportunity for a job. The presentations use examples of celebrities who have been convicted and appliesthe law to those situations. The presentation has also been adapted for young offender insitutions.

Alex has successfully recruited and managed 19 volunteers, successfully fundraised to meet costs of the project and set up all links with the prisons from scratch. He has found an interesting and fun way to deliver potentially dry information. The aim of the presentation is to help prisoners in their search for work on their release. The presentation is designed to change behaviours in prisoners, resulting in fewer prisoners re-entering prison.

He set up the project while working at HMP Doncaster in the prison shop as a temp before going back to university. Alex set up the project to help those prisoners in finding jobs when they leave prison, he asked the prisoners if they knew about The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and they all said no. Alex says 'It is vitally important that these men/women learn of the law in this area, since failure to comply with it can lead to sacking/prosecution'. His project seeks to give each man in attendance some kind of working knowledge of this area of the law, so they can make an informed choice when next applying for work. Alex says the volunteers on the scheme have been great and really enthusiastic about going into prison and giving the presentations. The presentation has so far been delivered at 6 different prisons to over 100 prisoners and feedback has been excellent from both the prisoners and prison wardens.

Alex has many plans to develop the project and has already visited prison establishments in Wales and the North East of England. He wants to see the project expand to every BVC and LPC provider in the country and any interested law schools. Alex is extremely passionate about Pro Bono work by law students and lawyers alike and would like to see many more students given the opportunity to go into prison and offer practical legal advice to the prisoners. If you are interested in learning more about the project or setting up something similar at your university then please contact Alex at alexsimmonds@hotmail.co.uk.