fundraiser
Angel Tree 2024
$0 Raised
Summary
Organization name
The Other Side Academy
2019
Category
Human Services
Organization Size
Large Organization
Address
1859 York StDenver, CO 80206
Denver, CO, US
CO, US
The Other Side Academy is a training school in which students learn pro-social, vocational and life skills allowing them to emerge with a healthy life on “the other side”. This program is available as an alternative to those facing long-term incarceration as well as those seeking a change from the life they’ve chosen in the past. Many of those who seek entrance into the Academy are convicts, substance abusers or homeless. This school accepts men and women, both pre-and post-sentencing, who are ready to learn a new and better way to live.Personal behavioral change does not happen in a week, a month or even a year. Those seeking admission into the Academy commit to attending for thirty months. Lasting change requires intensive on-site education and practice. TOSA teaches students both fundamental personal management and relationship skills such as keeping one’s promise, accountability, love, charity, and dependability. At The Other Side Academy, students will awaken to their own value as they support their peers in finding theirs. They work hard, have a good attitude, and watch out for the next person. The most lost among us are taught to have a life free of addiction, crime and destruction.
In addition to learning self-governance, students work full time at one of our vocational training schools. We are self-sustaining through these training schools. Through the process of taking back their lives students learn marketing, business and trade skills.
Whether a student cooks, cleans the Academy, or runs the register at the Thrift Boutique, everyone contributes as a part of the team.
The Other Side Academy is a place for change. If you or your loved one are looking for help to overcome a destructive lifestyle, The Other Side Academy invites you to come to sit on the bench.
Giving Activity
Mission
We Save Lives By Changing Behaviors.
Background Statement
The Other Side Academy is a 501(c)(3) public non-profit organization where criminals, homeless and substance abusers can change their lives, free of charge. Our comprehensive two-year residential program accompanied with a 6-month transitional program offers vocational training, education, peer counseling, mentoring/leadership training and transitional services.
The Other Side Academy is a “classic therapeutic community.” It is based on one of the most researched and effective models for helping those with long histories of addiction and criminal behavior over the past 70 years. In a therapeutic community, the powerful influence of experienced peers is employed in place of therapists or doctors who don’t share the same life experience as our students.
Participants in our program are called “students” and they represent our society’s most serious social problems—and yet, remarkably, as a group, they provide solutions to one another’s challenges. We do not have doctors, clinical therapists, or counselors at The Other Side Academy. We are not a program based on counseling or therapy. Instead, there is no distinction in the backgrounds of leaders and students other than more time and experience living in The Other Side Academy community and influencing others to change their lives. All have been in and out of jail or prison repeatedly and ultimately, left hopeless for a decent life.
Faculty members at The Other Side Academy are living examples of the efficacy of the program. They themselves have done everything new students are asked to do. Thus they have the credibility to show others how to change as they have done.
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Organization Data
Denver, CO 80206