Washington, D.C. - (November 16, 2024) - The 2024 Anchor Awards was a momentous occasion, marking the 5-year anniversary of Ship and Anchor LLC and the 35th birthday of its founder and CEO, Devin Smith. This event was not just a celebration of business milestones but a heartfelt commemoration of Devin's transformative journey, which began with the discovery of journals he wrote while incarcerated in 2019.

The previous quinquennial Anchor Awards celebrated on November 17, 2019 gave Devin's attending family and friends a first look into his prison journals. This year's Anchor Awards afforded attending family, friends and organizational partners a first look into Devin's original music, which serves as the soundtrack to the Letters from America's 3rd World (Letters) multimedia series. Like the rest of the Letters project, the soundtrack's theme is "Healing, dealing, & reeling" - reeling it all in, dealing with issues, and ultimately healing...both individuals and the system.

The Journey Begins: What's Your Anchor Framework (WYA), 2019

Devin developed the WYA framework as byproduct of insights gained from re-reading his prison journals back in 2019. In the journals he was unpacking how the grief of losing his father and uncles in the sudden sinking of their commercial fishing boat contributed to his incarceration.

The WYA Framework is a comprehensive personal and professional development tool designed for individuals and organizations alike. For individuals, it helps people develop a personalized playbook for approaching the workforce. For organizations, it creates a strategic thinking model that helps align people, process and outcomes; and it helps establish authentic brand identity. This framework has been instrumental in Ship and Anchor maintaining operation and impact despite launching just months before the Covid-19 pandemic. It additionally was utilized to establish our unique and authentic brand.

Full Steam Ahead: Applying the WYA Framework, 2021

1. ANCRD Voices at the Social Justice School

The WYA Framework was applied to the ANCRD Voices initiative at the Social Justice School a collaboration with Voices Unbarred and supported by Georgetown Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service ASK Program, and the National Theatre Foundation. This program focuses on social-emotional learning, covering key areas such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Additionally, it emphasized advocacy for oneself and others, empowering participants to become proactive in their communities.

2. WYA Workforce Playbook 101

The WYA Workforce Playbook 101 was initially introduced at Craven Community College Job Readiness Bootcamp in New Bern, NC , and later at the Arts Institute for Creative Advancement in Washington, DC. This personalized playbook helps individuals identify and develop their skills, navigate the workforce, and pursue new job opportunities, promotions, leadership roles, or entrepreneurship. It also incorporates social-emotional development and self-advocacy - hallmark of all applications of the WYA framework. Particularly geared to align passion, purpose and ability, the curriculum is designed to be an overlay to existing workforce development and job readiness programs, equipping participants with a personalized "playbook" for developing and refining skills for any professional journey.

The Big Pivot: Media & Entertainment, 2020, 2022, 2024

All inspired from Devin's prison journals, Ship and Anchor's Media & Entertainment Division has grown to include a podcast, an award-winning documentary short film, original music, a book (anthology of select journals & insights), and nationally recognized plays.

This division exemplifies a strategic messaging campaign aimed at advocating for individuals with lived experience of incarceration to lead efforts in transforming the system. The campaign seeks to shift the narrative from a punitive "public safety" approach to a restorative "public health" approach - approaches focusing on healing and repairing harm, rather than on simply punishing.

This 5-year journey has revealed media and entertainment as a comparative advantage for Ship and Anchor that we intend to continue to leverage for social impact even beyond this specific messaging campaign.

The Journey Continues: Reimagining America's 3rd World, Tour, 2025

The Reimagining America's 3rd World Tour is Ship and Anchor's latest endeavor to execute its messaging campaign. By leveraging various media forms (podcasts, films, music) and entertainment events such as (plays, concerts, etc.), the tour serves as a platform for local community based organizations and leaders to elevate the novel insights of lived-experience by sharing local narratives from "America's 3rd World". Anchored in entertainment, this approach is designed to leverage the creativity of the arts to strengthen the imagination that drives innovative thought. In this way, we aim to truly reimagine the current system together - community, practitioners, students, and academics. Naturally, we anticipate this will better facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration towards mutuals goals, as has been the hallmark of Ship and Anchor's work.

"Engaged Research," a concept that involves community participation in validating social science research alongside academics, is a core objective of the tour. Bringing academia and local communities together, we aim to foster mutual understanding of relevant "public health" or restorative approaches in the criminal legal system, highlighting Ship and Anchor and other relevant work; while also facilitating intentional connections that fill skill gaps for community based organizations and opportunity gaps for ambitious college students.

Facilitated by trauma-informed practitioners, these events are aligned with principles of "healing justice" - creating space for vulnerability, rest, safety and community-building for people directly impacted by the criminal legal system, and those working to transform it.

The 2024 Anchor Awards was a powerful reminder of the impact of intention, resilience, creativity, and community support. As Ship and Anchor looks to the future, we remain committed to fostering change and inspiring individuals through storytelling, education, and advocacy. For more details about the event, click here.

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