Education
People are sent to prison in order to protect society from harm. However, investment in bars, guards and guns alone may help to keep reduce offending in the short term, but ultimately it does nothing to make society safer. This is because ultimately almost everyone in prison will eventually return to society. If they remain idle during their time in prison they are likely to become bitter and resentful. If however prisoners are given meaningful things to do and equipped with the skills and self-belief they need to support themselves upon release, society becomes safer because rates of re-offending will decrease.
- Education creates opportunity; the lack of which is the main cause of crime.
- Prisoners usually come from marginalized backgrounds and have been denied the opportunities more readily available to others.
- The education projects implemented by APP provide people in prison with the opportunity to learn and develop as individuals, consequently decreasing their likelihood of re-offending. Ultimately society will become safer and richer through the education of prisoners.
- Prisons staff have an important part to play, in both allowing prisoners to access education and in being advocates for it. To encourage them we ensure that our education activities are open to prisons staff and, wherever possible, their children.
The principles behind our education initiatives are that:
- Creative and confidence building activities: drama, art classes, choirs and bands.
- Formal and informal education including reading clubs, literacy programmes, provide a foundation for a reading culture and create friendships, story telling and literacy classes.
- Religious activities including bibles studies and Alpha classes.
- Vocational training to help inmates to become employable, such as knitting, tailoring, construction and refurbishment.
- Provision of education related counseling and guidance.
- Constructs, refurbished and stocks prison libraries. These libraries will serve to rehabilitate and inform and will be a hub of knowledge and welfare provision in each prison in which they are created. Each will be staffed by a qualified librarian who will ensure the library remains current, responsive to change and constantly striving to reach out to the prison community and to be the centre of rehabilitation within the prison.
They will serve as:
- Citizens’ advice bureaus
- Legal resource centres
- Medical resource centres
- Formal education centres
- Informal education centres
- Correspondence centres
- Welfare centres
- IT Centres - Mobile libraries. In order to extend educational opportunities to even the most remote prisons, APP will use mobile libraries offering the same services as the permanent libraries.
- Training and development of prisons service welfare officers and librarians.
- Training prisoners to become teachers.
- Training trainers to provide sensitization workshops for prisoners and staff educating them on topics such as: Human rights, what they are, how they apply in prison and what they can do if they are breached; Torture, what it involves, what the official policies are and how they should handle instances of torture? (also health and legal education).
- Establishing civilian librarians in prisons and national prison librarian association.
- Building relationships between prisons services and national examinations boards and universities so inmates can gain national qualification.
- Facilitating research by academics into education in prisons in Africa.
APP will bring about systemic change in education in prisons in Africa by:
1. Short term
2. Medium term
3. Long term
- Creation of libraries in Uganda, Kenya and Sierra Leone
- Provision of toy and book borrowing facilities for children and infants in Uganda
- Refurbishment of educational facilities
- Book box projects, providing mobile library type facilities prisons
- Adult literacy classes
- IT classes
- Bible studies, Qur’ans for Muslim prisoners etc.
- Workshops on rehabilitation, human rights and mental health
Education past and present projects:
- Over 2000 hours of book clubs and literacy classes at 7 prisons around Kampala.
- 2 drama groups sponsored by APP at Upper Prison, Luzira, which put on regular performances.
- Regular art work taking place at Kampala Remand Prison. An art competition at the 7 Kampala prisons in August 2010.
- Ongoing support to various choirs and bands at Upper Prison, Condemned Section.
- APP facilitated story telling at Kampala Remand basis on a regular basis.
- Ongoing training of prison warders and staff in library management skills at Kampala Remand Prison.
- Access to literacy provided via book boxes at 5 prisons around Kampala, to supplement our three existing libraries.
- Vocational training: 13 week, twice weekly knitting course, for inmates at Luzira Women’s Prison, including certification ceremony and distribution of income from sale of goods.
- One month visit by Education Advisor Sandra Worthington to evaluate and supervise education activities. Followed by three week visits by Susan Mahony and Maria Cotera from the Chartered Institute of Library Information Professionals.
- Ongoing development of prisoners as teachers by APP librarian.
Impacts
We believe passionately in the transforming power in education. The impact of high quality, diverse education programmes on inmates and staff is huge. The skills and attitudes gained through participating in education initiatives contribute to a reduction in reoffending, by helping people in prison to choose options other than crime on release. This makes society safer. Education gained by people in prison, can be shared with the community upon release. This can include parents in prison returning to their families and helping to educate their children. Increased education opportunities for prisons staff will help to attract high calibre individuals to work in prisons, therefore bringing new skills and experience to prisons services.
To give you an idea of the level of impact we are having, this is what we achieved in this area in Uganda in 2010: