ABOUT ENLIGHTENED PATHWAYS
Finding purpose, financial stability & steering the underrepresented into lucrative career paths
Enlightened Pathways was founded to help people who are experiencing difficulty finding adequate employment, due their past criminal history, with their professional development goals, including career and entrepreneurship goals. There are millions of people whose lives continue to be adversely affected, even after serving their sentence. We all deserve a second chance to be looked upon as a respectable and productive member of society. But far too often, people who made a mistake, very often early in their maturation process, are discriminated against in hiring practices, making it difficult for these marginalized individuals to provide for themselves, and financially provide for their families.
The Founder of Enlightened Pathways thought this was an unjust cycle, and found it appalling that a mistake made in your past essentially condemned people to a life of poverty. So she decided to do something about it. She spent years researching psychological and behavioral trends of this population, to understand what factors made them vulnerable to contact with the criminal justice system, and what made them return back to jail so frequently. After much research and analysis of her findings, she found that most of these people were from disenfranchised backgrounds, predominantly due to systematic racism and oppression. One of the systematic ways these groups were being oppressed is by ensuring poor quality school districts in the neighborhoods they called home, as well as lack of resources to knowledge and higher education. These individuals often failed to see their worth in a society that made it clear that they placed no value in them.
Shahidah Hagans, Founder of this organization, realized that all these individuas had sklills and potential in areas that were untapped or just never cultivated. She devised a system where each client would vocational rehabilitation services undergo a brief but rigorous aptitude test to assess what areas their best skills and natural abilities lied in. She found this process to be an effective way to get these individuals to see their worth, and their purpose, and tied it into the pursuit of financial independence, and eventually to thrive economically within society. With the results of the aptitude assessment, combined with a professional review of the results and personality qualities, Enlightened Pathways helps the client choose a career path that will not only bump them up to the next tax bracket, but with a plan for higher education/training that will most suit their interests and attention spans, also taking into account their personal life circumstances, and the limitations those circumstances may pose. Enlightened Pathways realized that everyone could not be treated with a cookie-cutter approach, expecting them to go to 2 - 8 years of college just to be able to hold high paying or prestigious occupations.
The goal is for every client to set a goal to obtain the proper education and training that will lead to a career path they find enjoyable, because it is attached to their own personal core values and purpose. As a result, they become more marketable in the workforce. The founder of Enlightened Pathways saw a critical need to provide a service to formally incarcerated individuals, by helping them identify a fulfilling purpose in their life that is also attached to their ability to become economically self sufficient, and financially stable in a society that otherwise has otherwise told them they were not worth rehabilitation. We now provide vocational rehabilitation and case management services to ANY individual that has ever had any court involvement, and have added entrepreneurship support services to anyone wanting to increase their earnings, for a cost substantially less than most business development services offer throughout the industry.
A Non-Profit Organization Dedicated to Empowerment
OUR MISSION STATEMENT
Enlightened Pathways vision is to fulfill the needs of the adolescent population by providing technical assistance and mentorship in the pursuance of vocational and career goals, while also aiming to achieve economic self-sufficiency for our clients. We aim to reach those who are at risk for contact with the criminal justice system, as well those recently released from incarceration or preparing for release. Our main focus is to provide the proper guidance in achieving their career objectives, through educational institutions or entrepreneurship efforts.
With our innovative approach, we will teach them how to capitalize on their natural talents and abilities to help them establish realistic & practical career goals, therefore making the goals set forth more attainable. Our knowledgeable & professional staff will provide an abundance of information, resources, and support in helping them attain short AND long term employment goals. We help clients to make informed decisions about how to attain these goals . We serve to enlighten the paths of our clients that will lead to a more productive lifestyle while restoring their value and self-worth. We will also encourage our clients not to limit themselves from positions of occupational prestige. Our efforts strive to put an end to the cycle of dysfunction in these communities that play a contributing role in the overwhelming statistics that reflect a pattern of social immobility in these less affluent communities. Our programs stand to combat inequitable access to educational and economic opportunities.
“This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them—for this is their lot.”
~Ecclesiastes 5:18 NIV
YOUR PATH TO OCCUPATIONAL PRESTIGE
Despite all the legislative enactments for affirmative action and opportunities for these groups who have been systematically oppressed, such as African Americans and other minority groups, they remain severely underrepresented in the more higher earning sectors of the workforce. Meaning, there is still a huge salary compensation gap in what minority groups are offered, versus other demographics. Enlightened Pathways is working hard to steer these minority groups into more respectable positions, yielding higher salaries.
CREATING A PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE'S SUCCESS
The populations that have historically experienced the most oppression have not been given fair opportunities to climb up the socioeconomic ladder with the same fair standards as other more privileged groups. This makes it very difficult for those groups to produce generational wealth and economic self sufficiency. So Enlightened Pathways created programs to cut through the red tape, without being at the mercy of lawmakers to pass more equitable laws to prevent the cycle of systematic oppression that perpetuates poverty amongst future generations of minority groups.
MEET THE BOARD
Shahidah Hagans, PRESIDENT OF BOARD
BOARD MEMBER
Neeraj Sharma
Board member since 2021.
BOARD MEMBER
Kenneth Tays
Board member since 2021.
BOARD MEMBER
Eric Waters
Board member since 2022.
BOARD MEMBER
Alicia Figueras-Lambert
Board member since 2023.
MEMBER OF STAFF
