SEC13: Alison Urie and Graeme McKerracher of Vox Liminis

As I continue my journey through social enterprise I find myself continually inspired by those who operate their businesses and the effusiveness with which they communicate their vision – these are people who not only love being businessmen and businesswomen, but that also care deeply about society and their company’s social impact.

Alongside this, it affords people an opportunity to take the things they love and channel them into processes which combine passion with profit, turning the results into something which benefits the world. Make no mistake about it: we in the social enterprise sector should take great pride in our ability to forge social change out of our passion.

In my personal life, my greatest passion is music and Vox Liminis harness the power of the arts. The very particular and specific power that creativity gives an individual to articulate their emotions is a potent catalyst for one to examine themselves and their lives, and acts as a positive motivator towards recreating oneself in a spectacular way.

Vox Liminis work with prisoners, those with “offending behaviour” and those affected by such behaviour, such as friends and family, using creativity as a tool to aid rehabilitation and to in turn help individuals recreate themselves and their lives through the power of art.

On this episode I have Alison Urie and Graeme McKerracher of Vox Liminis as my guests and we have a really great chat about the genesis of Vox Liminis amongst other things.

Highlights include:

• The focus and mission of Vox Liminis – posing questions about justice in 2015 and how they open up conversations in different ways that engage people on a human level, not because they have a label
• Working not only with people who have a offended but also with their families
• Using a holistic approach and the way their work is underpinned by trying to understand the multitude of things that go on within the dynamic of offending and punishment, and how people move on from that
• What did it take to get someone to offend, and what happened in prison to them and those around them?
• Prison doesn’t just affect the individual, it affects all aspects of their lives and ripples out to affect those closest to them
• What is society’s role in that interplay?
• The genesis of how Alison started Vox Liminis and how Graeme got on board
• The focus on music as a starting point for Vox Liminis and why it began there
• The power of music as catharsis, even in an abstract way
• Why Vox Liminis is a social enterprise
• The malleability of social enterprise and the importance of the innovation space
• Challenges and successes of Vox Liminis

The diversity and malleability of the social enterprise sector is truly staggering. Vox Liminis is another example of a social business where individuals have taken their passion and used it to create social change.

I hope you enjoy the episode.

Links

Vox Liminis website
Vox Liminis on Facebook
Vox Liminis on Twitter