About us

The name FROM EXPERIENCES comes from the fact that there is a difference between hearing a person talk and listening to someone who is speaking from experience. FROM EXPERIENCES Corp. is a residential program which provides free meals, housing and counseling for participants faced with the challenge of making the mental adjustment to reentry back into the community. It is a place to connect with others who have either dealt and/or dealing with similar problems or life experiences. FROM EXPERIENCES is an interactive, collaborative and experiential process designed to improve the mental and emotional well-being of its participants. Our organization is built upon the testimony of lived experiences. At FROM EXPERIENCES Corp., we are dedicated to providing compassionate and empathetic support to men and women coming home from prison.
FROM EXPERIENCES Corp. is the brainchild of its two co-founders, Christy and Wazir El-Amin. After meeting and communicating with one another, the two discovered that they share many of the same lived experiences. In particular, the experience of trauma in their life. Not only aware of their own personal experiences, Christy and Wazir have an awareness of the experiences of other people. These co-founders’ approach towards the experience of trauma is with a level of consciousness.
Christy comes with a heart filled with compassion for others, while Wazir comes from a place of having empathy for others. With the realization that other people also come from a place of experience, the FROM EXPERIENCES Corp. co-founders wanted to assist other people in getting the help that they need to break through the loneliness, isolation, and experience of trauma. Turning their personal, lived experiences into a purpose, Christy and Wazir El-Amin gave birth to FROM EXPERIENCES Corp.

Christy L. Fields, CEO and Co-Founder

Wazir M. El-Amin, Executive Director and Co-Founder

Our Committment

FROM EXPERIENCES Corp. is committed to:
  • Assisting in mental transition from prison to community
  • Advocating for mental healthcare, resources and support for current and formerly incarcerated
  • Providing access to mental healthcare options and resources
  • Promoting importance of mental health, counseling and therapy
  • Addressing trauma of incarceration
  • Eliminating the stigma associated with seeking mental healthcare

Key Aspects of Mental Health

Mental Health encompasses an individual’s emotional, psychological and social well-being. Mental Health affects and has an effect on how an individual feels, thinks and acts. Mental Health is critical in determining how an individual is able to (a) handle stress, (b) relate to others and (c) make conscious choices in his/her life. An individual who is mentally healthy will be able to seek out, establish, maintain and cultivate relationships with other people in the community.
At FROM EXPERIENCES, we understand the profound impact that an individual’s Mental Health has on his/her overall well-being. This is especially true for men and women making the mental transition from the experience of having served years, sometimes decades, in prison to going on to live a normal life in society afterwards.
See Our Program

Conclusion

Human beings and their capacity to destroy one another is matched only by the ability human beings have to heal one another. FROM EXPERIENCES was founded with this concept in mind: healing from shared experiences. FROM EXPERIENCES’ motto of “iron sharpens iron…as one man sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17)” and logo [Fe] symbolizing iron represents this concept that human behavior can be shaped, either positively or negatively, by the environment.
FROM EXPERIENCES aim is to provide a positive and supportive environment that will foster and inspire positive change in the lives of its participants. It will be a place where men and women enrolled in the FROM EXPERIENCES program can live, be active participants in their own healing process and feel less alone in his/her experience while forging meaningful bonds that will sustain the test of time.