Nickie is the President and founder of MOMS LOVE FOREVER, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children maintain strong bonds with their incarcerated mothers. Despite her success as an entrepreneur, producer, philanthropist, and activist, Nickie’s proudest accomplishment is being a mom. Nickie’s personal experience with the justice system led her to create MOMS LOVE FOREVER, which partners with the state prison system in Los Angeles to support children’s visits with their moms in jail. Nickie’s work with MOMS LOVE FOREVER is driven by her belief that strengthening the bonds between mothers and children is crucial, particularly given the high number of women who are incarcerated in the US.
Can you tell us more about your personal experience and what inspired you to create MOMS LOVE FOREVER?
MOMS LOVE FOREVER is the combination of my passion for being a mom and my closeness to my daughter (who is my world) and my history of involvement in issues pertaining to women. For a long time now, I have been a major supporter for organizations that help victims of domestic violence and children. When I myself pled to an aiding and abetting FARA violation (aiding and abetting someone else’s failure to register for work done for a foreign individual), incarceration was a real possibility, and I began researching for programs and organizations that would assist my daughter in such a situation. We live in LA and I read about many great organizations in Texas, and New York and other cities – but not many in LA so I felt compelled to do something. My organization actually focuses right now on moms in CA state prisons, specifically in Southern CA as that is where we are based, so it doesn’t specifically help my daughter because my situation was a federal case, and that’s fine because the most important thing is for an organization to be able to help children and their moms incarcerated maintain a relationship. Hopefully in the future, we will branch out to federal women’s prisons and perhaps other states too.
How has MOMS LOVE FOREVER impacted the lives of the children and mothers you work with?
We are a young organization that just started this past year. Our first event was this month (April 2023) at CIW (CA Institute for Women) and we reunited a number of children with their moms. They got to hug and kiss their moms, take photos, eat lunch together, face paint, and just have some loving mom-child time. Many of the kids hadn’t seen their moms in years—not only because of the difficulty of getting to the prisons (which are often in far away locations), but also because during covid, in person visits were shutdown.
What are some challenges you faced when creating MOMS LOVE FOREVER and how did you overcome them?
There are still challenges with the work we want to do—and here are the challenges.
One, it is much more difficult for children to visit their moms in jail than it is for children to see their dads in jail? Why? Because when a dad goes to jail and is taken out of the home, generally speaking and what we have seen, is that the mom still holds the family together. She organizes for the children to go to see their dad. Unfortunately, many of the moms in jail have absentee husbands or boyfriends, they are single moms or even if the dad is in the household – what we have seen is that often, he just doesn’t exercise the same type of household organization to take the kids to so their mom. So then you have grandparents or aunties or older siblings trying to take younger kids to see their moms and that becomes an issue because you need to have notarized permission for these kids to see their mom with someone other than their parent. That costs money. We pay for this service if needed and help to coordinate the visit – which requires tons of paperwork. It is not easy to gain entrance to see your mom if she’s in prison. There’s also a language issue a number of times with the instructions. There are so many hurdles that you wouldn’t even think about, before we even begin to simply talk about transportation, gas costs, and distance to the prison. And then the prison itself and their staff are concerned about safety and security which makes everything even more complicated in terms of paperwork and authorizations for simple things such as lunch, teddy bears, etc. The list goes on and on. Anyway, that’s just par for the course – the most important thing is that children get to see their moms.
Can you describe a particularly touching moment or experience you’ve had while working with MOMS LOVE FOREVER?
Of course, the children being reunited with their moms is the first and foremost obvious thing but the other thing that I have been super impressed about is the number of young people who are willing to volunteer and help out with such programs. That is inspiring.
How does MOMS LOVE FOREVER work with the state prison system and what partnerships have you formed to support your mission?
There are two state women prisons in southern CA: CIW (CA Institute for Women) and Central CA Women’s Facility (CCWF). In order to get permission to arrange for children to visit their moms, you need to coordinate very carefully with these prisons. It is a lot of paperwork and authorizations and back and forth. We work with the Center for Restorative Justice to operate the programs and they have a point person who basically handles most of the coordination with the jails’ staff and you need to be respectful of whatever regulations and concerns the jails have.
How do you hope to expand MOMS LOVE FOREVER’s reach in the future?
MOMS LOVE FOREVER was formed to specifically help to maintain and strengthen the bonds between kids and their moms in jail – firstly through enabling visits. Physical contact especially between young kids and their moms is so important. I also would like to somehow enable moms in jail to be able to send their children gifts during the holiday season. That’s my next project.
Listen, there is so much to be done on this topic. The US incarcerates more women than any other country in the world and the majority of them are mothers, and victims of sexual abuse and violence. Even if you look at the population of the women prisons we are working with in California – they are all over capacity with many moms in there for non-violent crimes. Eventually, MOMS LOVE FOREVER would like to help work with the organizations that are fighting for changes in the actual criminal justice system legislatively so that we don’t have so many children needing to visit their moms in jail, but right now, that’s not our mission or our capability.
What advice do you have for others who want to make a difference in the lives of children and families impacted by incarceration?
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Volunteer. Actually volunteer with an organization that is dedicated to something that you are interested in. When you get on the ground and get involved… it will evolve into something so beautiful and rewarding.
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Be empathetic and be willing to learn. People can sometimes not want to help or be empathetic if it has to do with prisoners or jails, but at its most basic level, we have to be empathetic and think about the children and the lives our criminal justice system is affecting with incarcerating so many. The US incarcerates more women than any other country in the world. What do you think happens when you incarcerate a mom especially for a non-violent crime, or a woman who is a victim of sexual assault and abuse? You put a huge void into that family structure and then there is a greater likelihood that you will have generational incarceration.
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Donate money to organizations like ours (or ours) so that we can continue to do the work we do and expand it.
Can you talk about your work with Akon to develop talent and produce content in Africa and how that experience informs your work with MOMS LOVE FOREVER?
How has your personal and professional journey influenced your philanthropic efforts?
As President of Akonic Entertainment, the work and production we did in Central Africa was much different than what I am doing now with MOMS LOVE FOREVER! I cry all the time when I’m doing work for MOMS LOVE FOREVER because it’s so sad to think of the children who are apart from their moms.
The work with Akon… that was completely different and a lot of fun. We really were able to foster and change the lives of so many young talents from across the country and we were able to train a whole new generation of production staff that knew nothing about how to produce content. Almost everything I have done, professionally or philanthropically has been a result of me feeling passionately about a subject or certain group of people. With the show I produced with Akon for three seasons, I had been in Africa and specifically the Democratic Republic of Congo and noticed so much talent in the young people there. Seriously, I’ve traveled to a number of countries in Africa and when it comes to actual musical talent – DR Congo is really a special place so I felt compelled to do a music show that would showcase that. The winner of the first season of the show (Innocent Balume) is arguably now one of the most well-known and successful artists from Africa in the world now – so we did something right. Actually, I used to cry when I watched a really great performance with that show too! But it was because I was so proud or so moved by the art I was seeing come out of those kids. I’m a passionate person and in order for me to do something and commit to something, I generally need to be moved emotionally. That’s just me. It’s the artist side of me.
What can society as a whole do to better support incarcerated mothers and their children?
Advocate for more appropriate sentences for women offenders such as drug rehab programs, home confinement and work programs. If we don’t have to remove a mom from the household, we will help to stop the cycle of incarceration and recidivism.
Empathize with children who may have a parent in jail. Those kids are innocent and we need to do whatever we can to support them as a community and society. In California, appx 9 percent of the state’s children have a parent in jail. Over 5 million kids in America have experienced a parent in jail, so it’s more widespread than you can imagine and as a society, we just generally, need to be more empathetic to people’s circumstances because sometimes you just don’t know what they are dealing with. The studies have shown us 70% of the kids who have had a parent in jail end up in jail themselves. We’ve got to do better.