There are women all over this great nation, who, despite their education, socio-economic status, or success in their careers struggle with two main issues in their personal lives: the loss of something significant to them, and their feelings of self-worth associated with that loss (or losses).  As a result these women experience high levels of stress, battle depression, make unhealthy life choices and can end up in destructive relationships.  Subsequently, they often suffer in silence along with their children, their parents and their loved ones who become affected in so many ways.  Passion Flower Productions Inc. is focused on helping to empower women in three places:  women in prison, women in transition and women in the community.  We believe that by doing so, we are causing ripple effects that impact the future of our societies, our nation and the world.

Facts About Women In Prison:

• The female prison population has risen 275% since 1980.
• The crimes these women tend to commit are survival crimes to earn money to put food on the table, feed a drug addiction and escape an abusive relationship.
• 75% of these women are mothers.  Suffering along with these women are over 160,000 children left behind.  These children who are growing up in the shadow of the prisons are paying the highest price.

John Hagan, Ph.D. in his document, The Next Generation:  Children of Prisoners, states:  The children of women in prison have a greater tendency to exhibit many of the problems that generally accompany parental absence including:  low self-esteem, impaired achievement motivation and poor peer relations. In addition, these children content with feelings like anxiety, shame, sadness, grief, social isolation and guilt. As these children reach adolescence, they may begin to act out in anti-social ways.  Searching for attention, pre-teens and teens are at high risk for delinquency, drug addiction and gang involvement. (Women’s Prison Association, 1995:9).

We at Passion Flower Productions, Inc. believe that in order to help these children and stop the cycle, we have to go upstream and provide support, education and healing to the mothers of these children (and women in general).  We do this by providing relevant topic-driven events that weave education, discussion and the arts together to create interactive, multi-sensory experiences that are filled with grace. 

These programs are voluntary and offered to the women at Hillsborough Correctional Institution once a month.

According to the Florida Department of Corrections website, preliminary studies utilizing a one-year recidivism measure indicate that participation in transitional programs greatly increases inmate success after release from prison.

We at Passion Flower Productions, Inc. are working on a transition program that involves finding volunteer church teams that would adopt women at the time of their release to support them and find resources for them for the first year of her life in the “free”.  

Women In The Community

As we work with women in prison and support them in their transition back into our communities, it is our belief that there are many other women in the community that struggle with the same issues of loss and self worth that women in prison have struggled with.  Whether or not we admit it, for some of us, the only things that separate us from the women in prison are perhaps the choices that we have made and/or the support systems we have had the opportunity to utilize. So we provide programs to women in the community to empower them as well as cultivate a nurturing environment for women to help other women. 

At Passion Flower Productions, Inc. our approach is faith-based in healing the mind, body and spirit within each woman so that she in turn can help heal and strengthen her children, her family and all of those around her.