Dewi Simmonds
Dewi is now the owner of “True Ground” – a business offering groundworks landscaping and gardening around his local community in South Wales, and he is building an income and rebuilding his life through it.
Dewi had a hard beginning in life with an abusive father and a very unhappy childhood as a result. His family were not wealthy and he was left to fend for himself for much of the time. In an effort to escape a life that he found unbearable, he fell in with a bad crowd and soon became embroiled in the world of drugs and related crime. He ended up in prison – and sadly this pattern was repeated several times – a release from prison, a return to the same crowd and the same activities and then a return to prison. On more than one occasion, he was released from prison with nowhere to go and no plan, and so his chances of turning his life around were poor before he even started to try.
However at some point in this cycle two things happened. The first thing was that he found faith and became a Christian believer – this changed his attitude to the world, himself and his future. The second thing was that he took up an opportunity whilst he was in Parc Prison to enter “Parc Tank” – this was Parc Prison’s version of Dragon’s Den. The prison had raised some prize money from some local philanthropists and invited anyone due for release within the following few months to enter a business plan. A shortlist of 8 was produced and they were offered a chance to attend the Purple Shoots “Why not start a business?” course which Purple Shoots ran over 5 sessions in the prison, enabling them both to plan self-employment on their release and also to prepare a pitch for the “Den”. Dewi had become the prison barber during his time in the prison so he put forward a proposal to set up a barbers’ shop. All the presentations were excellent – but Dewi was the winner, taking the top prize which waited for his release.
On release, he had a change of heart around his business idea, deciding to go back to the outdoors work that he knew and loved and so, with Purple Shoots’ help, he adapted his plan and set up True Ground. The funds enabled him to buy equipment and started with a few small jobs and has been building from there.
