Second Chance Choir helping people overcome hardship through music

On a gloomy Tuesday evening, the sound of Amazing Grace drifts out of an unassuming building, wedged between a sports store and a government office in Perth’s north.

Inside, dozens of people are shedding their inhibitions to sing loud and proud, putting aside years of trauma, violence and addiction.

This is the Second Chance Choir, a group of people who come together for support, community and music.

From prison bars to singing bars

Choir founder Jade Lewis came up with the idea in 2009 while running a support program in a women’s prison.

“I saw a group of women who had lost their voice and I could relate, because I had lost my own voice through trauma and addiction,” she said.

Ms Lewis admitted she was initially reluctant to work with offenders.

“But then I got the courage and I began to think, well somebody helped me when I was in my brokenness, then perhaps I should be helping them in their brokenness,” she said.

“I started to see a lot of their challenges came when they actually finished their time in prison. They found it hard to get homes, jobs, to get on with their life.”

Open to everyone

Although many members belong to faith communities and their main song is the Christian hymn Amazing Grace, Ms Lewis said the choir was open to everyone.

“Singing a song and coming together in a non-invasive, non-intrusive environment … you start to meet people that have overcome their own challenges,” she said.

“[Members] find people that believe in them and who are willing to give them a second chance, and what I really love about the choir is that they don’t just find their voice, they find their song.”

‘There is hope for you’

Ryan Brownhill started taking drugs at 15, eventually becoming addicted to amphetamines.

“I was very broken, very anxious, very lost, depressed,” he said.

“My life was lacking hope and I didn’t know a way out of the life I was living.”

Mr Brownhill found the choir through his church after getting clean at 25.

“So to be able to sing [Amazing Grace] to give other people hope that hey, if it’s possible that I was able to change my life, then it’s possible for other people as well.”

Fellow choir member Valeria Mazza spent two decades addicted to drugs after a traumatic childhood involving family violence.

Her three children were taken from her and she was jailed four times.

“I went into prison this angry person … I hated everybody, I blamed everyone,” she said. 

Ms Mazza met Ms Lewis when she was mentoring prisoners and said it made all the difference when she was released for the last time in 2014.

“The other three times when I got out, there was no support, there were no programs that I could go into and I just went back to the same way of living, just back into that same lifestyle — drugs, crime, looking for love in the wrong places,” she said.

“[The fourth time] when I came out, I had a team of women around me that were available to me 24/7.

Ms Mazza has restored her relationship with her kids and is now working as a registered nurse.

A different way to be a man

Like Ms Mazza, Jake Baker joined the choir after spending years in and out of prison.

Mr Baker believes the choir shows a different way to be a man.

“If there are men stepping up … other men see that, they’ve come out of jail,” he said.

“Instead of like trying to have that bravado up, you know, just let your shell loose a little bit, you can just sing at the top of your lungs and just be like ‘woo hoo’, you know?”

‘Everyone deserves a second chance’

Ms Lewis would like to see more initiatives like the Second Chance Choir developed in WA.

“I think there are a lot of programs out there that manage behaviour, but a choir actually provides a pathway where people can find hope, dignity and community,” she said.

Ms Mazza had a message for others who were struggling.

“Don’t give up, just keep trying. Put one foot in front of the other [because] everyone deserves a second chance,” she said.