Meet The Coalition
Coalition Partners
Helping Others Achieve Power and Equity (HOAPE) is a coalition composed of four Georgia based orgaizations that address issues with mass incarceration, all of which are led by formerly incarcerated Black women leaders.
Women on The Rise
Movement Building & Public Policy
Women on the Rise GA is a membership-based organization led by a diverse sisterhood of Black women who are impacted by the legal system. Through community organizing and supportive services, WoR GA is building a powerful base of women with the skills and experience necessary to wage and win campaigns. WoR strives to end mass incarceration and achieve collective liberation while transforming themselves and their communities.
ReNforce
Workforce Development
ReNforce provides training and coaching to businesses looking to hire system-impacted people to meet their workforce needs while simultaneously providing unique training and professional development to improve employment outcomes for career-seekers. ReNforce-Redemption House also provides supportive housing to women whom the legal system has impacted.
Woman With a Plan
Reproductive Justice & Women Centered Advocacy
Woman With a Plan supports formerly incarcerated women in achieving their full potential by encouraging, enabling, and facilitating an active involvement within their community. Woman With A Plan provides mentoring, assistance with groceries, clothing for interviews, and help with women reacclimating successfully back into their society. Their programs empower each system-impacted woman/girl upon release with newfound respect by restoring their dignity, self-worth, and values.
NewLife-Second Chance Outreach, Inc.
Reentry & Job Readiness
The mission of NewLife-Second Chance Outreach, Inc. (NL-SCO, Inc.) is to end mass incarceration by equipping, empowering, and restoring socially, economically and civically disadvantaged Georgians impacted by an arrest, conviction or incarceration by providing services, resources, advocacy and grassroots organizing that supports the replacing of carceral systems of oppression with person and community centered solutions and access to resources that support freedom, inclusiveness, equity, and economic sustainability.
Meet the Core 4
Robyn Hasan-Simpson Bey
Executive Director
Robyn K. Hasan Simpson is the Executive Director of Women on the Rise. Since coming home, after serving 10 years in prison, she has been fighting to reform the criminal legal system through the campaign of Closing the Atlanta City Detention Center, which has gained national attention. She is the point person for Georgia Clemency program for women that originated from the National Council for Incarcerated Women and Girls. While inside she created a newsletter to help uplift women in her situation, since coming home she continued the newsletter through Women on the Rise and Reverse the Cycle of Incarceration. This newsletter helps keep women she left inside informed and aware of the laws and changes that are being made that affect them inside as well as addressing issues upon coming home. She is also a part of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force on Criminal Justice Reform. She lives in Atlanta with her husband Ronald, daughter Nadya, and 4-legged girlfriend Nova.
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Charlotte Garnes
Exective Director
Charlotte Garnes launched ReNforce (pronounced reinforce) in 2020 because of
her experience with discriminatory employment and professional licensing
practices. She received her undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice from
Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, GA, and her Master of Arts in Counseling from Webster University in Columbia, SC. Ms. Garnes is a trained
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion professional with a DEI certificate from the University of South Florida. ReNforce provides support and training to individuals returning home from incarceration and assists them in making a successful transition back into the workforce and society. ReNforce also engages
employers open to learning more about the benefits of hiring qualified job
candidates with a conviction on their record. ReNforce broadened its portfolio
with the establishment of Redemption House, a supportive Safe House Initiative aimed at aiding justice-impacted women located in Augusta, GA.
Tabatha Trammell
Founder
Tabatha is the Founder of Woman With a Plan, a Lawrenceville-based organization that empowers women who are directly impacted by the criminal system.
Tabatha's knowledge of the criminal system and issues women face upon release, comes from her own personal journey of being incarcerated. She gave birth to two children while incarcerated who were placed into foster care after their birth. She faced many hardships and challenges in regaining custody. The demands and requests from the foster care system forced Tabatha to advocate on her own behalf. With hard work and determination to NOT allow the system to defeat her, Tabatha regained FULL custody of her children. As a criminal justice reform advocate, she dedicates a large portion of her advocacy to helping formerly incarcerated mothers overcome the same challenges she experienced with custody battles as well as those experiencing underlying issues that stem from mental illness.
Waleisah Wilson
Founder
Waleisah Wilson is the founder of NewLife Second Chance Outreach, Inc. An activist, workshop facilitator/trainer, speaker and entrepreneur, Waleisah is a 2017 JustLeadershipUSA “Leading with Conviction” Fellow, a 2019 Southerners on New Ground the Lorde’s Werq Leadership Fellow, a 2020 Soros Justice Fellow, a member of the 4th cohort of the Women Transcending Collective Leadership Institute at the Center for Justice at Columbia University and most recently, a 2022 Represent Justice Ambassador, where she created and produced her first short film “Working in Captivity: A Woman’s Quest to End Slavery in Georgia”, a documentary to support the GA chapter of All of Us or None’s campaign to end prison labor.
To overcome the challenges of finding employment with a felony, Waleisah turned to entrepreneurship and now owns 3 businesses. Because she is a firm believer that entrepreneurship is a viable and clear path from poverty to to sustainability, entrepreneurship, access to resources, opportunity and equity are at the root of her activism.
HOAPE Coalition
c/o Women on the Rise
1001 Virginia Avenue, Suite 203, Hapeville, GA 30354
404-783-8059
info@hoape4ga.org
Operating Hours
Mon - Fri
9am - 5pm
(closed the day before, the day of and day after major holidays)
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