The original curriculum for No Lock Doors was written in a jail cell in Chicago’s Cook County Jail. Witnessing the ingenuity and natural intelligence of nearly every inmate lead Damien Markham to begin assisting other inmates to develop Individual Development Plans to increase their chances of having a successful release from the corrections system. While assisting inmates, Damien was told he should do the same for youth to prevent them from even falling into the same traps. Drawing from his days at an executive-level internship called ic stars, Damien began developing the curriculum.  Upon release in 2010, Damien noticed the introduction of more successful independent recording artist and the allure the entertainment industry has on the minority population. This led him back to the drawing, he knew that just giving youth a piece of paper with a plan on it would fall on deaf ears. He took the next 6 years developing a curriculum that could use the interest of the majority to educate them.

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Knowing what lead him astray, Damien developed No Lock Doors to give young people hope and build resiliency, confidence, and skills to protect them from the despair of ongoing trauma in order to give them a voice to make a significant change to improve their own lives and their community.

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