a bitter sweet success story of the Walk to freedom foundation
From living in a domestically violent home to a life as a career criminal Mark Clarke, founding CEO, finally ended up having to struggle with the challenges of drug dependency for more than 20 years. He suffered in many ways, sometimes finding himself in prison or on a psychiatric ward. Finally, Mark found freedom during an intensive 16-month rehabilitation programme, which led to him discovering a passion to draw upon his experience to help others.
Mark’s subsequent research and training led to him to working alongside drug and alcohol users to develop a pioneering approach to recovery that is focused on understanding the complexities of dependency from the user’s perspective.
As a result, Mark and his team have been able to help hundreds of users by enabling them to explore the question: ‘Why do I use when I don’t want to use?’ Answering this question – with bravery and honesty – is often the first significant step in the walk to freedom.
This was just the beginning for Mark as he had a passion for young people who were living a life of antisocial behaviour, gang and knife crime like he used to. Mark then in an effort to address this issue in communities studied criminology, adolescent behaviour and psychology, and from there developed the I AM POSSIBLE YOUTH CHALLENGE personal development workshops and mentoring programme which over 5 years has seen many people begin to make a successful exit away from antisocial behaviour and knife crime into either further education, employment, and find their passion and purpose in life.
Mark Clarke sadly passed away in December 2020. The Trustees, staff and volunteers are continuing this work.
‘The role of management is to create the prefect environment for everyone to flourish!’
The Walk to Freedom Foundation is run by three Trustees:
John Archer: Former CEO of LAMP who delivered supported housing to young people and working with disengaged young people and care leavers. John brings over 10 years of experience of working in the charity sector and over 35 years of business experience at senior levels.
Kimberley C. Lamb: - An experienced youth justice professional and former Vice-Chair of Bedfordshire Police’s Stop and Search Scrutiny Panel. She is Head of Bedfordshire’s Violence and Exploitation unit (VERU). The VERU is one of 18 national Violence Reductions Units, it brings together specialists from police, local government, health, education, probation and community organisations to tackle violent crime and the underlying causes. Home Office Joint Lead for VRU ‘Communities and Young People’ strand. She is also a Board Trustee for the Criminal Justice Alliance and a School Governor for a mainstream school and alternative provision - both in Bedfordshire.
Paul Minett: Chair of Trustees. A writer and Designer, who helped John Bird, (now: John, The Lord Bird MBE a crossbench peer) set up The Big Issue Streetpaper in 1991. Paul is currently working with The Lord Bird on his parliamentary work to dismantle poverty. An Associate Member of The Chartered Institute of Fundraising, sits on their South East and London Committee as Creative Lead with a remit for promoting their events. Paul has worked as a Fundraising Creative for clients including: Cancer Research UK, NSPCC, RSPCA and Oxfam, as many smaller charities too.
The Lord Bird actively supports the work of the charity and originally introduced Mark Clarke to Paul with a recommendation that Mark bring Paul on board to help support the development of the charity.
The board will be looking to rapidly grow to cover all the necessary elements of a fully functional board with targeted recruitment in the areas of Finance (appointing a Treasurer) and HR.