Trained for life beyond bars

By PISAI GUMAR
The inception of a project aimed to give a new lease of life to prisoners after leavings jail in Lae is gaining momentum.
It is an inspirational project that enhances the elderly, young men,women and juveniles including those living with disabilities hope in a meaningful approach to life.
The Buimo Prisoner Reintegration Project (BPRP) promotes a positive way of thinking and encourages exconvicts to be involved in productive activities.
Value City and Pagini clothing companies,each month donate bales of clothes as part of their community obligation to this project at the Buimojail.
Prisoners that serve more than one year are given a bale of clothes from Value City to enable them to generate wealth to make a living again with families back home.
Bales of clothes supplied by Pagini Clothing are sold to generate incomes to sustain prison rehabilitation activities under the prison welfare unit headed by Sergeant Arnold Juvai and Corporal Jill Tulo.
They are assisted by reunion consultant Mason Mai under the leadership of jail commander Felix Namane.
The project rekindles the ex-convicts’ closeness with families and restores faith and self-trust to live normal lives without any doubt.
Namane had decided some time back that an important element needed to enable ex-convicts to settle back in villages was missing. This was despite prisoners being taught various life skills through the existing prison rehabilitation programme.
He figured that life skills alone would be unable to help ex-convicts to live meaningfully and productively after prison.
At the end the training and their prison term they leave the jail with mere certificates of attainment and with a high likelihood to re-offend and return to Buimo.
Without any added incentive only a few people were able to find employment and others become self employed.Therefore the reunion mission is to help enable ex-prisoners to create wealth for themselves by selling the secondhand bales as soon as they walk out of the prison gate.
So far, 65 bales were given to prisoners that completed their jail terms.Since the inception of the BPRP,K14,000 has been generated and deposited into the prison account with ANZ Bank.
Many men, women, youths and juveniles, after committing offences walk into an environment encased by brick walls.
They lose their freedom of mobility,choice and decision-making, which are all removed by the rule of justice.Behind the brick walls, their hearts sink. The spike fences spiraled by razor wire leaves emptiness in their minds and they are crushed by all manner of imaginations.Inside the Buimo prison camp, the inmates looking out of brick openings or through the wire mesh see only the Bumbu river to the east and the Atzera Range in the south.
The law determines the number of years to be served based on the severity of offences committed. As a result,prisoners lose all they own.
Some lose their wives or husbands and the family unions unfold into misery. Several of them are unable to kiss goodbye to parents as they pass on;and others lose businesses and properties.
The hopes of children  are shattered and their upbringing and education are ruined.
Juveniles ruin their youth and their peers,family and the community no longer have confidence in the ability endowed in them.
They grow to regard the prison as their new found home.Regrettably, their foolishness to undermine community norms of respect,honour, love and care for others put them behind bars.But Buimo has over the years proven itself to be not merely a jail. It has incorporated useful skills training behind the bars under its rehabilitation programme.
It conducted various life skills trainings to inspire prisoners spiritually,physically, mentally and physically,enabling them to realise their inner potential and utilise it to make a living
after prison.
Juvai and Tulo are credited for their invaluable commitment in facilitating various life skills trainings in partnership with the private sector,churches and government organisations to inspire prisoners.
Among such trainings were the successful adult literacy and personal viability.
Many ex-prisoners walked out with many tales to share as well as certificates accredited by professional people in recognised private and public organisations.
‘A Turning Point: Buimo Prison Writers’ was a remarkable testimony.It is a 134-page book edited by Professor Steven Edmund Winduo and published by Manui Publishers, University of Papua New Guinea.
It is a must read, the fruition of literacy training in partnership with the PNG Bible Society and PNG Correctional Services.
Winduo and colleague Sakarepe Kamene from UPNG and Paul Kaiu facilitated the training.The book gives exciting insights to life in prison to think about for years to come, the evidence in adult literacy
projects in the country.
Armed with the useful trainings, exconvicts find employment in towns,venture into businesses, become missionaries or join community-based groups.
Some have the opportunity to continue tertiary education.However, despite the existence of prison rehabilitation policy, not all required skills are learned due to funding constraints, lack of technical expertise and inadequate materials.
Simply, the trainings are conducted on ad-hoc basis as determined by resource availability.
There is obviously a deep sense of appreciation for the involvement of churches and non-government organisations through their overwhelming support to the prison ministry in restoring faith in many shattered hearts.
PC Woo and Lae Biscuit Company were among many companies that contributed in cash and kind to the Buimo prison during occasions like Easter, Independence and educational events.
Namane is satisfied with the initiative to create a pathway to wealth creation for ex-convicts to take on from there and manage their own affairs.Juvai and Tulo are impressed that for the first time, Buimo paid for six21-inch TV screens and replaced the damaged screens in the prison’s 12cells.
“The BPRP is very helpful in enhancing the rehabilitation and minimising the need to write donation letters to companies and churches,” Juvai said.
From the money generated so far, K3000was used to buy the six TV screens and K1500 for prizes during the Easter programme as well as guitar strings and a sound mixer for the prison ministry,spare parts for the prison vehicle and fees for prisoners ’doing Flexible Open Distance Education (FODE) courses internally.Buimo’s rehabilitation programme is slowly bearing results both within the prison walls and in the lives of discharged prisoners.