A project between Market Drayton Town Council and Stoke Heath Prison has resulted in money being given to charity: Lingen Davies.
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00:00We're here at Market Drayton, just outside the Town Hall, and Mr Mayor, introduce yourself, what's your name sir?
00:05My name's Roy Alcroft.
00:06And we've got with you...
00:08Mark Greenoff, Governor of Stoke-on-Trent.
00:10And Anna Williams from Lincoln Davies Cancer Fund.
00:13So there's been some money handed over today from Lincoln Davies Cancer Fund, that's always nice isn't it Anna?
00:19It's lovely yeah, well thankfully for us it is an everyday occurrence, we've got lots of great people doing lots of great things for us.
00:26So the council have handed the money over, but it's kind of as a little thank you to the prison isn't it really?
00:33It is, to not only the prison officers that have organised it all, but the prisoners and their families.
00:41So what have the prison been doing for the council then, to help the council out?
00:44Well, when we launched our biodiversity plans, they came in as part of that and decided to come up with the bad boxes.
01:00So you work quite closely don't you? You've been doing, I mean I didn't realise this, but they've been doing work on the cemetery in Market Drayton, helping out with the fencing, the walls.
01:11We've been very much community based for 25-30 years, with us we work quite closely in a number of directions.
01:21So, governor of the prison, very stressful job I'm sure, but moments like this are quite nice aren't they, to get out.
01:31I was listening to a little chat there, you were saying 88% of the prisoners have jobs in prison, they're not just sitting there watching telly are they all day?
01:38No, no, we pride ourselves on providing opportunities to re-educate and re-skill prisoners whilst they're in custody at Stoke Keep.
01:48We've got a huge array of work that prisoners do, and this project around biodiversity and using waste materials to make bad boxes, bird boxes and insect boxes,
02:01is just part of our own, I guess, work in the community to support the local people.
02:08And what are some of the other jobs that they do then? We've touched upon that they've been helping work with the fencing in the cemetery and so on.
02:16I think the best way to describe the prison, it's like a small village and we've got all of the jobs you'd expect to see in a small village,
02:24from a kitchen that cooks the food every day, to keeping the place clean, keeping our gardens well kept, recycling all of our waste.
02:35And then we've got other additional work where we make sheds for a local company, we're involved with AR Richards who are a local waste management company.
02:50We make, as I said, the biodiversity bird boxes etc. for the local council, and then we also work with other companies in making product for them.
03:03And then Self Sufficient as a prison service, making things like t-shirts and shorts for prisoners and things such as wheelbarrows, prisoner beds, furniture and a huge array of things really.
03:21That's fantastic. So the town council have donated the money as a thank you to the prison and Lingan Davis comes in because that's your chosen charity?
03:30Yes, we decided to use Lingan Davis as our chosen charity. We're now working very closely with Lingan Davis as that chosen charity.
03:42We felt as a prison that cancer is something that touches everybody and we felt it was an excellent charity to support.
03:55They've then worked with us to train staff and prisoners as cancer champions to improve the awareness around cancer for both staff and prisoners which has been an excellent initiative.
04:07It's a great working partnership then Anna, with the prison by the sounds of it.
04:11Absolutely, and we're very grateful to Stoke Heath. They initially came to us after having done some fundraising.
04:18I believe there was a large scale football match that took place and we talked about how we could support Stoke Heath.
04:26The Cancer Champions Project is just one of the things we're doing in the community to benefit the wider community before people are impacted by cancer.
04:39Our Live Life Cancer Awareness service involves highlighting the signs and symptoms to people.
04:43We run our Cancer Champions training so we go into local organisations such as the prison, different businesses, community groups, anywhere and everywhere really to help people better understand how to have conversations about cancer with their peers.
05:01We just want to raise awareness about the importance of recognising the signs and symptoms and accepting cancer screening invitations.
05:09Well done. Well done to all involved in the project guys. Thank you.
05:13Thank you very much.