Alliance sought in planning of justice and learning centres

THE Department of Justice and Attorney-General will work with the Department of Youth, Religion and Community Development to facilitate community justice centres and community development learning centres.
Secretary Dr Eric Kwa said they had no plans to abolish the justice centres and would collaborate with their sister department to roll out this programme.
“We want to decentralise our programmes right down to the districts,” Kwa said. “To put people there, we need to have buildings.
“The whole idea was to build community justice centres and fill them with people.
“At the moment, we have got about 13 sector agencies that have their own programmes, so we need people on the ground to supervise and monitor them.”
Youth Religion and Community Development is currently establishing similar centres — community development learning centres.
Secretary Anna Solomon said the community justice centres needed family protection and empowerment services.
“The community development learning centres are friendlier and people related to the centres as their very own, because we are bringing services closer to them,” she said.
Kwa said community development centres had been on their plan for the past 15 to 20 years, and they were now trying to implement them. “It’s about how best we can be able to reduce costs, because their centres are about K500,000 while ours are K8000, 000,” he said. “They are putting K500,000 and districts are meeting the balance. We are doing the same. They have the same idea and we have the same too, so we can collaborate our efforts.”