BLUF: This story emphasizes the vital recovery journey of Mandy Ogunmokun who, after combating her own addiction, established a foundation to assist other women facing similar struggles.
OSINT:
It’s a sunny November morning in the backyard of an east London suburban house where Mandy Ogunmokun introduces employees of her recovery organization, Treasures Foundation. Many first arrived as recovering addicts, including Vivianne, a woman who first encountered prison at age 15. Ogunmokun founded the organization about ten years ago, knowingly identifying the desperate need for safe spaces and supportive environments for women struggling with addiction and their after-effects of incarceration.
The organization was initially designed to assist women exiting HMP Holloway, a women’s prison closed down in 2016. Now, the foundation is open to women all over the country, offering housing, daily meetings, trauma therapy, nutritional guidance, and holistic therapy, all while emphasizing the requirement for abstinence. Treasures Foundation has recently acquired four additional apartments and aims to acquire more to aid these women.
From Yorkshire in the 1960s to the bustling streets of London, Ogunmokun’s life is filled with gritty struggles and monumental victories. She was a child who tasted her first drink at ten and got caught in a whirlwind of hardship with substances, the criminal justice system, and her own past. Every relapse, every recovery attempt, each stint in prison, and every missed moment with her children all contributed to the creation of an empathetic refuge for women in need of support.
But through the hardship, Ogunmokun could turn her life around, becoming clean from addiction for 23 years. She began working with women in established institutions and perceived the lack of external support as a cycle of reoffending and addiction. It’s this empathy, lived experience, and dedication that led to the creation of the Treasures Foundation, a beacon of hope for struggling women.
RIGHT:
The story of Mandy Ogunmokun emphasizes the human potential for self-improvement and autonomy. Despite her challenging circumstances, she demonstrated resilience and initiative, taking responsibility to address both her problems and those of others. This account opposes a welfare-state model, instead favoring achieving empowerment through individualized care and community-based supports rather than reliance on government assistance.
LEFT:
Mandy Ogunmokun’s narrative underscores the detrimental impacts of systemic issues, particularly on the most vulnerable, like addiction-prone women. Her foundation, the Treasures Foundation, fills a crucial gap in services that the government has failed to address satisfactorily—the cycle of addiction, jailing, and inadequate support upon release. It reaffirms the need for a broader societal commitment and government intervention to help vulnerable populations.
AI:
The story of Ogunmokun is a tale of resilience, self-discovery, and the power of service. By bridging the gap between personal experience and social needs, the Treasures Foundation has created a groundwork for personal recovery where the system fails. This emphasizes the importance of nuanced, personalized support systems in dealing with addiction and establishing a pathway to progressive recovery. This narrative could inspire additional research into the effectiveness of similar grassroots efforts and their role in supplementing or even transforming established systemic approaches towards solving complex social issues.