Iridian Grenada - Media and Motivation

Iridian is a life-sentenced Canadian parolee. He is also a writer, a former weekly contributor to the Province newspaper in Vancouver, BC, a senior project manager for the John Howard Society of Canada, a teacher and an experienced motivational speaker whose message of human resilience has recently earned him a Parole Board of Canada release into the community after 28 years and five months of continuous incarceration. His delivery style is inclusive, and dynamic. His 60 minute presentation invites audiences to see every personal and professional setback as a gift that forces them to innovate. Or die. Depending on client needs, Iridian is open to an interactive audience session of up to 30 additional minutes where he answers questions on his experiences and/or strategies for resilience.

Oakalla. In Vancouver, BC in the early 1980's, just a mention of the province's most infamous jail would raise gooseflesh on the necks of even leathered jailbirds. I wasn't one of those though. I was a teenager. Too young to be scared. It would be another decade before I could justify buying a twin blade razor. Yet there I was on the edge of 17, walking into the front gates of a 72-year-old jail that had witnessed the lawful execution of 44 men and women between 1919 and 1959, and more extrajudicial killings than historians dare chronicle. While the kids I started public school with a dozen years prior were being fitting for grad suits, I was donning a different uniform; the green garb of the convicted class, 1984.
What I could not have guessed that first day behind bars (for joyriding a stolen Chrysler Cordoba from Vancouver to LA) was that I would spend 37 of the next 40 years surveying the world social milieu through prison bars. Nor could I have imagined that my travels in that concrete time machine would grant me insights on human resilience, release, and community so greatly needed in a post-pandemic world. What a privilege it is to share those insights with all those who know that the future is the only antidote to the past.

Iridian can provide his own sound, lighting, and video production equipment if required. While best experienced from stage, he also works well amongst guest in smaller spaces.