Our Mission and Vision
Let's demonstrate that we can give people who served their sentences a chance to work, live, and renew and strengthen relationships so that they have the opportunity to return to a full life and live with impunity. Everyone can make a mistake, just as every person has the right to a second chance – if they want one.
We want to reduce prejudice against people with criminal records
We connect those who want to help – professionals, businesses, and thepublic – with those who want asecond chance.
Together, we create an environment where everyone has a chanceat a fresh start. We believe a society built on understanding and respect is better for everyone.
We want to give people with criminal history and their families a chance at a decent life
We believe that everyone who has served their sentence - whether in prison or through alternative sentencing - deserves a second chance. That means the opportunity to work, to live in dignity and to live without prejudice.
At the same time, we want the children of these people not to carry the stigma of their parents' past. We believe that a person should not have to pay twice for his or her wrongdoing - first by serving a sentence and then by lifelong exclusion from ordinary life.
My name is René Hamrla and I am 50 years old. I grew up in a full and contented functioning family. In my 20s, I went into business and after a very short time began to taste the first hints of “success”. I managed almost everything, and I stopped respecting the legal norms and lived in the belief that nothing could happen to me after all.
After ten years, I was convicted of attempting to cut taxes for 4 years. After 2 years, I was released and entered life with the resolution that this would not happen again. Another 10 years passed and I found the courage to go into business again. I built a business with dozens of employees and a corresponding, not small, turnover. There were accompanying problems, and I resorted to the simplest of all possible solutions in good faith. I didn't consider the consequences of my decisions and I was recapturing.
After almost 15 years since my release, I was sentenced again, this time to 6 years.
It was a huge mistake for which not only I paid, but also my whole family, my children. Unfortunately, it was only after spending several months in prison that I slowly began to realize what success really is and the values that go towards it. My life has turned inside out. And today I'm actually happy for that.
I started running in the execution of the sentence first to stay physically ready for the next life, but also because it was actually an escape to myself. I could reflect on my mistakes, come to terms with them and start looking slowly on, at the life that would come after release. At the time, I perceived the dismissal itself as a very difficult and complex step.
This is the case today, more than a year later. It was a mixture of difficult and crucial decisions that each of us, the released prisoners, must make. Despite the disfavor of social habits and prejudices that we encounter on a daily basis. And not only in their job search, but also in their families, whom we have let down so much. In all of this, I try to stay grounded in my beliefs and values, which I think are finally the right ones. It's the trickier path, but I believe it's the right one to permanently integrate into a stable family and society.
With my openness to the past, I try to make people judge us not by the superficial information that comes to them and criminal records, but by how we approach life and the fulfillment of our personal and social responsibilities.
See photos from last year
Check out our best moments from the run.
