Today was the third and final day of the 360Life workshop that I’ve been delivering to prison chaplains here in Ghana who are affiliated with Good News Global. There were due to be 12, but for various unforeseen circumstances, only 8 were able to complete all 3 days and receive their certificates, but what an honour it has been to serve them in this way.
This was the first time that the materials had been delivered in Ghana, and it was great to be able to spend some really good quality time with the team, slowly going through the lessons, with lots of repetition, group discussions, activities and participation to get the new concepts embedded. We also spent some time contextualising the teaching to be tailored to the Ghanaian language and cultural values. So we considered what words would be tricky to translate into the local language (bearing in mind there are 43 languages in Ghana), what strategies to use to overcome the situations where there is no direct translation, and also what concepts might need to be adapted in order to fit with local culture and values. Today, the focus was on the participants giving a presentation themselves. They worked in pairs, and each delivered a different part of the presentation with the brief being that they had to assume we, the audience, were prison inmates, and they, the chaplains, had been given a 30-min ‘preaching / teaching slot.
It was so good to sit in the audience and watch the presentations being given. Not only did it provide good evidence of how much they now knew, but it was great to see the others really engaging in the activity and getting into the minds of prisoners as they came up with the questions that they asked.
Alongside all of that have been some good conversations about life in prisons generally, what the main crimes are that lead to imprisonment (petty theft is the main one, although armed robbery was talked of as one of the more major crimes), and wider issues regarding the prisoners. These included reoffending rates, lack of visiting rights for prisoners and their families, (especially when the prisoner is sent to a jail a long way from home), and mental health issues in prisons – both for prisoners, and prison staff. The main challenges being faced by the prison service were overcrowding, lack of food for prisoners, and a lack of well-trained staff, ie under-resourced generally, and there was also discussion around the challenge of being imprisoned for minor crimes (e.g. petty theft) and then transitioning to more major crimes as a result of mixing with more dangerous criminals and gangs. It was interesting how many themes are similar to those that we hear of regarding UK prisons, although I think the scale of overcrowding in Ghanaian prisons far outweighs that of UK prisons. However, before I make it sound like Ghana has a real problem with overcrowding, I must point out that I hear the same tales of massive overcrowding in many of the African countries that I go to, and certainly not just Ghana.
The training finished with the handing out of certificates, closing comments, words of thanks and a closing prayer before we all went our separate ways. It’s been so good to be here, and I’d love to come back. Will have to wait and see on that front. But whether I do or don’t achieve that, I pray that the seeds sown on this training will reap much harvest, and that the teaching on having a more trauma-informed approach will bring hope and healing to many who are currently incarcerated in Ghanaian prisons. Finally, a massive thank-you to Benjamin Siaw, national director of GNG Ghana for all of his support this week – it just wouldn’t have worked without him.
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