BIZ NEW ORLEANS - Operation Restoration, a New Orleans-based organization that supports women and girls impacted by incarceration, announces the hiring of eight new staff members:

NICHOLE CHRISTIAN | THE KRESGE FOUNDATION - NOLA-based grassroots organization, led and staffed completely by formerly incarcerated women, restores the whole woman financially, educationally, socially and artistically

In the world that Syrita Steib inhabits, her name is a near synonym for second chances. Some use words like trailblazing and bold to describe the impact of her work as founder of a Louisiana-based nonprofit Operation Restoration dedicated to helping women and girls navigate life after incarceration.

NEW ORLEANS — From Operation Restoration:

A dozen women impacted by incarceration have achieved something many of them thought nearly impossible six weeks ago. That’s when they began an intensive Lab Assistant Rapid Reskilling Program to train as certified medical laboratory assistants. After successfully completing the rigorous training, the students, ages 18 to 57, receive certificates in a graduation ceremony on Aug. 5 at Union Bethel AME Church in Central City.

MARIELLE SONGY | BIG EASY MAGAZINE - CANScantSTAND was founded as a program within Operation Restoration to advocate for the law’s repeal that disproportionately targets the LGBTQ+ community and particularly trans women of color. While it duplicated the state’s anti-prostitution law, CANS made offenses punishable by five years in prison and ten years to life as a registered sex offender, while prostitution is a misdemeanor offense.

PRESS RELEASE | AP NEWS - Jobs for the Future (JFF) is announcing 22 recipients of Ascendium Education Group’s Ready for Pell grant initiative. Ready for Pell is designed to help institutions that provide postsecondary education in prisons navigate the upcoming changes to the Pell Grant program for student financial assistance, giving learners who are incarcerated new opportunities for educational attainment and increased economic mobility.

BY MADELEINE DAVISON | NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

BY MATT SLEDGE | STAFF WRITER AT NOLA.COM

BY ASHLEY WHITE AND MONTRELL CARMOUCHE | THE ADVOCATE

BY SUZANNE PFEFFERLE TAFUR | CONTRIBUTING WRITER AT NOLA.COM

NEW ORLEANS (FOX 8 LIVE)

“It hasn’t been treated as if we are in a global pandemic and people are dying every day. It is definitely, in New Orleans, business as usual as it relates to bail … The time is now; we need to act now. We need to get folks out of there now, like we can talk about the logistics later. Right now we need to move and get folks out of jail.”

NEW ORLEANS (WDSU) - The mayor of New Orleans is encouraging recently released inmates to take advantage of a stimulus program to help them re-enter society during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell issued the following statement on the launch of “Returning Citizen Stimulus Program,” a collaboration between the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) and its partners:

FROM UNPRISONED: STORIES FROM THE SYSTEM | WWNO (NPR)

BY CAMILA DOMONOSKE | WWNO (NPR)

BY SYRITA STEIB | THE ADVOCATE - With the highest incarceration rate in the nation, Louisiana’s crowded prisons and what to do with them has been a topic of much debate for decades. Now, as New Orleans faces high COVID-19 infection rates in the world, a widespread outbreak in its overpopulated jails is a recipe for disaster.