360Life training for Prison Officers in Romania

The prime focus of my visit to Bucharest has been to deliver 360Life training to a group of 30 prison officers who are working in 5 different prisons in the local area. Some of the participants have the role of security guards within their prisons, some are working in the education departments of the prisons, running various activities and rehabilitation programmes etc, and others come from the medical departments and have a role in supporting the physical and mental health of the prisoners.

The training went very well, and the small group sessions resulted in lots of very good discussions as the participants shared with those from other prisons and other departments. The final part of the training involved splitting the participants into 6 groups, and each group designed and gave a presentation covering the key messages that they felt needed to be taken back to their respective prisons and departments.

I love that part of the training, in part because it confirms how well the participants have understood, processed and contextualised the materials. In part because it’s great to see the creativity of the participants shining out. But also, in part I guess because it confirms to me that the training is on the mark and is serving a purpose, which is always reassuring to know!

The Q&A time was its useful mix of challenging questions – including whether there might a way in which AI could play a role in recognising and mitigating against trauma. I don’t know that I answered that one very well – takes a lot of thinking through, and I’m still thinking!!

The aspect of delivering this training that never ceases to fascinate me is the contextualisation of it, and hearing the insights of the participants as they apply it to their situation. In this context, obviously part of that context was the Romanian prison service. Lack of resources – funding and personnel – featured heavily, and the challenge of overcrowding, with some of the participants speaking of up to 24 inmates in a cell, and a lack of quiet, safe spaces for having counselling/pastoral type conversations. A lack of previous training on effective communication skills was also mentioned, and as my training programme continued, it was great to see some light-bulb moments taking place around the impact of negative communication styles v positive communication styles. Something that we might think is obvious, but when you’ve been raised in a country that is so scarred by its recent history, and where adult – child communication was often quite terse and brusque at best (according to some who were on the training this week), well that gives an insight into why, for some of the participants, thoughts around how they address prisoners wasn’t always top of their list.

The other main aspect of the contextualisation side of things for this workshop was the post-communist context. The participants were mostly of an age when they’d grown up after the end of communism, so the experience of living through that regime wasn’t so big on them. But the experience of living with parents who had grown up under the communists was very impactful. Parents who struggled to trust anyone because back in the day they never knew who was working for party and would snitch on you. Parents who were so traumatised themselves that beating their children was a common response to the slightest upset, resulting in many children who  are now quite conflict avoidant and hyper-compliant. Many had parents or other relatives who struggled with alcoholism as a way of trying to mask the pain of their past.

In line with this, when we chatted about traumas that fit with the Romanian context, the first national trauma mentioned was that of living through communism, and the related traumas at a more personal or family level that had been experienced as a result of living with someone who was still struggling with the post-communism impacts. There’s also a whole generation of young adults who spent their childhoods in the notorious orphanages, and who are still trying to work through the trauma of that. They spoke about instances that had happened more recently as well – with their proximity to Ukraine and the war there being a significant one.

It’s been a real privilege and joy as always to deliver this training, and to spend time with these wonderful people as they consider how to have a more trauma-informed approach in their prisons as well as overflowing into their home and family life.

There’s plenty of processing still to do, and exploring what could be the next steps in creating trauma-informed prisons, but for now I thank them all for hosting me and pray for wisdom and insight and resources to move to the next stage of the vision of the minister for prisons – to have a fully embedded trauma-informed prison service across the country.

And a massive shout-out to Mircea and Ronela Cristian from Rock Of Ages prison ministry, for all their support in ensuring that this training went ahead, and their support this week as they selflessly gave so much input to the training. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 

IDAK Update - always a good conversation!

 

Catching up with any of the CRED Partners over a cuppa is always a highlight of my role, especially when I am fortunate enough to be in their locality whilst drinking that cuppa. The most recent catch up for me was with Kenyanito, at a coffee shop in Nairobi, whilst we chatted about all things IDAK.

IDAK is still a relatively new organisation, but it is going from strength to strength. Its over-riding aim is to strive to rebuild broken dreams to ensure that vulnerable children, young people and families regain hope and their confidence in dreaming creatively again. One example of how this has been achieved includes the twenty plus young people who are being supported to continue through to secondary education (and in so doing smash the glass-ceiling of their families who have never progressed beyond basic primary education in the past). Another includes the resettlement of some elderly widows who were living in squalor and begging for rent, due to patriarchal customs that prevents widows from having access to land or home, and in so doing allow those women to realise their dream of having a rent-free home. Then there are the children now able to go to school for the full day each day, as their dream of having a meal at lunch rather than walking for 2 hours to get home for lunch has been realised. And there are some single mum’s who have been given a little bit of start up money to create income generating activities (IGAs) which in turn is helping them realise their dream of being able to stand on their own two feet financially.

Chatting with Kenyanito today we discussed many of these programmes. Partly what has been achieved so far, and also the plans for progressing the different programmes further. The rural feeding programme is to increase the vegetable bed component, with the plan to sell any excess produce and generate income to help expand the project further. A new suite of urban feeding programmes are being developed as well - some are along the foodbank style for targeted families, and there is also a feeding programme being planned for a kindergarten located in a Nairobi slum which has some particularly vulnerable children attending. Simple business skills are to be taught to single mums as they prepare to embark on IGAs, as well as provision of mentors to walk with those women through the first steps of their roles as small business owners. These IGAs include things like making and selling various street foods, hair braiding, second-hand clothes and shoes stalls – fairly simple activities that don’t require huge amounts of start up capital, but could make a big difference to the self-perception and confidence of the women, as well as the resources available to them. We chatted about the young people on bursaries, and the university v vocational training choices to be made by them, and the tension between unrealistic aspirations and realistic dreams and how to help the young people in those decisions without biasing them one way or the other.

We also chatted about some collaborative projects that are in the pipeline between IDAK and WOLOM (the church ministry that Kenyanito and Val head up). One of these is the use of the WOLOM church building to allow IDAK to provide a safe space for young mums seeking affordable childcare whilst they go out to work and realise their dream of being financially independent. Just to give some context to the circumstances of the women who seek this childcare: they are predominantly single mothers who are living in or on the edge of poverty and don’t have the support network to allow them to stop work. The types of work that they might be doing include street-trading, informal domestic labour, washing clothes, cooking foods over charcoal stoves. Having a young child with you for any of these is incredibly risky – sometimes you might not even get the work, at other times the child is at risk from wandering into the roads, getting burnt through playing near the stove or getting injured through playing amongst the rubbish that is ever present in these neighbourhoods. So, to enable them to have access to safe and affordable childcare is a lifeline, and when this project opens up it will allow dreams to come closer to being fulfilled.

There were so many more angles to the conversation, but the above gives a taster into just how inspiring and wonderful our chat was, and how impactful the work of IDAK already is. I wish it every blessing as it progresses forward.

NB If any of you would like to get involved in / support the work of IDAK – do let me know, I’ve got plenty of ideas!!

An oasis of calm against all odds

 

About 2 hours drive north from Mombasa, just over the county border into Kilifi, lies the Asilomar project, and the reason that I have journeyed down to the Kenyan coast. Headed up by Norbert, it is a beautiful oasis of calm and tranquillity, as well as having a more practical and productive role within the local community.

What Norbert has created here is just incredible. The land around here is very rocky – and when I say rocks, I mean ROCKS! Not just the odd stone here and there, but proper massive rocks that mean that it takes huge amounts of hard work to prepare the ground for any planting. But that has been achieved, and Norbert has developed a garden that demonstrates permaculture principles at their best. He has intercropping, he has fruit trees, and he has trees to provide shade for the more tender vegetables. He does rainwater harvesting and careful irrigation so that none of the valuable water is wasted. He does crop rotation and companion cropping to ensure that one plant helps protect the other crop from pests. And some of the garden is just planted to provide a quiet, reflective space, that hums with birdsong, insects, and the gentle rustle of the leaves blowing in the breeze.

The garden in itself is an oasis of calm. But it is also a demonstration garden for local folks who come by, and want to know how Norbert and co are harvesting tomatoes when everyone else’s crops have ended. Or what the philosophy is behind growing some vegetables near to trees, or why they don’t grow the same crops in the same place each year.

Most of this community, being a coastal community, has its identity located in the role of fisherfolk, and all things sea-related – even down to food production being about fish, and using fish as a bartering tool for other food stuffs. Their knowledge of subsistence farming, and producing food from the land, is not something that they know, or identify with. And so the conversations that Norbert and co have with folks as they wander past, look in the gate and see crops growing – these are really valuable opportunities to help change mindsets, educate, and equip the people to try food production in ways that are more likely to succeed.

Because sadly the traditions of this community are struggling to survive – fishing is no longer a viable trade for many due to the big fishing fleets that ply the waters, and fish-related trades are also falling by the wayside. Climate change is also taking a toll on rainfall, water tables, daily temperatures. Fuel prices are high and so setting up as a motorbike taxi is harder because people don’t want to pay the prices to go places unless they really need to. To survive these challenges will require lateral thinking, and that’s a skill that doesn’t come naturally to many in the community.

So, the garden is definitely one with a multi-purpose vision. But alongside that, Norbert has also created another little tranquil space that again demonstrates to local folks the power of thinking outside the box. And this space is all to do with the water tank tower.

As part of the demo garden, Norbert does rainwater harvesting. And given the random-ness of the rains here, a big tank is needed so that as much as possible can be harvested as and when it does rain. So, there is a big tank up on a tower – nothing unusual about that. But creative Norbert had the vision to put an additional room below the tank, which is set up to be a self-contained bedroom with en-suite. And then above the tank has been created a roof space, with comfy chairs and amazing views, and peace and quiet (except when the nearby mosque is doing it’s call to prayer!).

It is just the most beautiful space, and is a real blessing to those, like myself, who are fortunate enough to use it. But it is also a practical example that can be used to illustrate the power of lateral thinking, and looking beyond the obvious, which is a skill that this community will need to develop if they are to adapt to the new contexts in which they find themselves.

My role here has been to come and see how things are going on the project front, discuss obstacles, challenges and possible ways forward. Certainly we have had some excellent discussions that tie in with those aims, and on that front I feel that I can say ‘mission accomplished’. But with regard to the overall visit – well I’ve definitely been blessed in many ways that go far beyond the obvious outcomes. 

 

Uganda visit comes to an end

 And so my time in Uganda, for this visit, is coming to an end. Next stop back to Kenya for another project visit.

It's been so lovely as always to be back here in the Pearl of Africa. Yes, there have been the undertones of Ebola that have put a bit of a downer on things, but I've had some wonderful project visits and meetings.

The Soroti visit I've talked about, so I'll not revisit that one, but suffice to say some of the participants from there are already in touch about doing the online training that is available as follow up to the in-person training.

And then there was the day with John up at the vocational college in Mityana. No students around as it is school break here at the moment, but it was good to see the structurally completed school, and to help John process thoughts that he is having about now moving on to focus on what happens inside the classroom - teaching methods, child behaviour (how much is that coming from the behavioural examples set by the parents?) and how to tackle it etc. 

We also went up to the new sports field that is being established and had a bit of 'blue sky thinking' under the big blue sky of rural Uganda. Big sky, big views, big space for ideas - perfect.

A couple of very good days in Acholi Quarters, chatting with the students who we support, and with many of the parents. We tackled issues that Harriet had raised around parents not always paying their top-up monies due to poor use of the savings scheme, around some of the students perhaps not trying as hard as they might, around some of the older students not wanting to continue beyond their version of GCSE's but wanting to deviate into vocational training instead. All very good conversations, and what I particularly liked was that the parents came up with the solutions to the problems, and just looked to me for my reflections on their solutions, rather than asking me to solve the problems in the first place. 

There were a few other challenges that needed to be worked through, and there were also some one-on-one conversations that I was asked to have with particular students who had discrete and unique needs. It was a privilege as always to be part of these conversations and to be able to have the chance to share in the process of exploring challenges and coming up with solutions that are contextually suitable and workable for those involved.

Alongside all of that I've been blessed with times spent with dear friends and I'm so very grateful to each and every one of them. Being in Uganda really is the closest that I feel to home from home when I'm away, and I always leave a bit of my heart behind when I depart.  

Until the next visit Uganda - love and prayers to you all.