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Meurika Stewart
March 2009 saw ex-offender Meurika Stewart recognised for her achievements in turning her life around when she won a Department of Work and Pensions 'Getting Back to Work' London Regional Local Employer Award. The terraces of Chelsea Football Club where the awards were held must have seemed a far cry from the halls of HM East Sutton Park prison but Meurika is an expert in meeting both new experiences and challenges head on. Coming from a tough childhood, Meurika had no qualifications or work experience and was leading a life of drugs and crime. Through a prison rehabilitation project, she took the opportunity offered by BeOnsite to learn new skills as a dry lining trainee.
She says: “Life wasn’t great, I was doing a lot of drugs and got into trouble. But three years ago I decided to turn my life around, I had had enough. I didn’t believe in myself but I was always interested in construction and once I had told the governors at the prison what I wanted to do, it took off from there. They put me in touch with BeOnsite and here I am working as a dry liner, earning money with a good job to get up for each morning”.
Meurika is one of six children and was brought up in care. In trouble since the age of 15 when she walked out of school she fell into a life of drugs and ended up in prison. Now at the age of 34 she wants to give something back to the people who are helping her, regularly talking at schools about the implications of taking drugs, the effect on young people lives and why they must take a different route to the one she took. She says: “Not a lot of people want to give you a chance but Bovis Lend Lease is not looking at the past, it’s looking at what, given the support, you can give in the future.”
Whilst still in HMP East Sutton Park in Kent, Meurika got up at 5.30am to travel across London for a full days training and practical work. She was the only woman on her shift. She also attended a multi-skills course at West Herts College as well as doing voluntary work at schools and colleges in her local area.
Meurika started to earn a salary in January 2008, half of which was saved on her behalf for when she left prison in January 2009. Upon her release Meurika continued in the job she had been doing for the previous eleven months, providing stability in a new and uncertain future.
A further year down the line Meurika is still supported by BeOnsite and continues to work with specialist dryling and plastering contractor Measoms on Bovis Lend Lease projects. She says: “For me this is excellent. It’s all about choices. What you make of your own life. If there is something out there for you go out there and grab it. For me personally I now see a light at the end of the tunnel. I love my job. It's absolutely wonderful. The guys I work with are great too. Having this opportunity has changed my life dramatically, I can't want for more! It's made me more confident and sure of myself. BeOnsite is so supportive, not just with the work but mentally as well. I just know I'm not going to go back to my old life."
Moving forward, Meurika is hoping to use her own experience to help others by mentoring young offenders giving them a practical and realistic expectation of what to expect in the world of work. |
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