A world away from Bondi Beach, life inside Rikers Island is getting a little lighter thanks to a meditation teacher.
“Acrid. Disinfectant mixed with body odour. Stale,” describes former journalist turned meditation teacher Joh Jarvis.Inside a housing unit at Rikers Island.“There are often men just sort of standing there holding the bars looking at you. They might yell things out trying to get your attention because they’re bored,” she explains.
Jarvis had a 23-year career with ABC Radio before, eight years ago, she put her Surry Hills home on the market, packed up her bags and said goodbye to everything and everyone she knew. “I wanted to, as a journalist, to explain things to people. I wanted to explain things to myself, and I wanted to find solutions through journalism. And eventually, I just saw that things are repetitive,” she explains.
‘If they’re thrown out there with no new skills, no ability or no capacity to self-reflect because they’re so full of stress and trauma, then you’re doing society a disservice.’But that was not straightforward. Gaining volunteering rights at Rikers Island was an arduous task, and months of unanswered emails and phone calls followed.
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