The
Executive Director of Prison Fellowship The Gambia, Dr Abee Abraham, has spoken
about their existence as an organization while highlighting some of their
activities, achievements, and plans to embark on in 2017.
He
explained that his organisation is a Christian non-profit making organisation
which is affiliated to Prison Fellowship International, a global
volunteer-based NGO operating in the criminal justice arena in 128 countries
around the world.
Speaking
at their annual Angel Tree party held over the weekend, Mr Abraham said the
organisation was established in 1976 by Chuck Colson, a former adviser to
President Nixon, and has a consultative status with the UN ECOSOC.
The
mission of PFI is to seek justice and healing for all those who are involved in
or affected by crime, and to advocate for reforms, in line with Biblical
standards, in the criminal justice arena.
Prison
Fellowship The Gambia was chartered in 2001 and was re- invigorated in 2008, he
said.
Since
then they have worked with the major stakeholders; prisoners and their
families, the judiciary and CSOs in positively driving the justice agenda
forward.
“Some
of our past interventions include sporting equipment and facilities in all the
prisons sponsored by the German Embassy in Dakar in 2011 and 2014.”
They
also built a library and furnished it in the central prison through local
partners in 2012, donated TVs, bed-nets, mattresses etc., to the inmates
through local partners, including especially court sessions to decongest the
remand wing sponsored by the British Embassy in Banjul in 2013.
They
also conduct an annual Justice Roundtable, which brings together stakeholders
in the criminal justice system to deliberate on challenges, and the way
forward.
The
activities sponsored by the British Embassy in 2013 and by NED (National
Endowment for Democracy, Washington) in 2014 and 2015 included an Annual
Christmas party for prisoners’ children tagged Angel Tree, since 2008, annual
Christmas lunch in all the prisons since 2008, quarterly engagements with
prisoners’ families to provide group support and to assist as and where
possible, scholarships for prisoners’ children, about 20 currently, in various
partner schools, advocacy for penal reforms and training for state officials in
the criminal justice system.
Regarding
strategic plans for 2017, Mr Abraham said in partnership with the Ministry of
Agriculture, through their NEMA project, they shall be setting up an integrated
farm at Sibanor to support the wives of prisoners.
This
initiative under the pillar Support Group Ltd would guarantee wives of
prisoners access to livelihood with dignity, to offset the grave social and
economic fallout of having their spouses behind bars.
The
project would also mitigate and, hopefully, break the prison cycle; the
unfortunate tendency of a high percentage of prisoners’ children ending up in
prisons themselves.
