Mirror
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Giving
them a life beyond As I walked into Welikada prison, I didn’t entirely know what my afternoon held in store for me. There were thieves, drug addicts and murderers imprisoned inside, but they were not the people I came to meet. The girls from the Bishop’s College Interact Club were there, and they are expecting me. As part of their community service programme, the Interact Club of Bishop’s has begun to work with the inmates of Welikada prison. The Prisoner’s Welfare Fund Project, as it is known, is a rather ambitious undertaking. It aims to give the women inmates of Welikada not only knowledge, comfort and skill but a degree of financial freedom as well. There are six of them who form the core committee – Vinitha Rajendra, Jeena Wickramarathne, Tasha Ibrahim, Abhilashini Manoharan and Eshanya Weerawarna. Thilini Nananayakkara is the chairperson of the committee, while Hasanthi Senanayaka is the project co-ordinator. “These women have been cast out of society and yet they are normal, ordinary people,” says Tasha. Her conviction is shared by the rest of the team. While the prison has its share of serious offenders, it appears that most of the women are in prison mostly on charges of drug abuse. Society at large has condemned them to spend their time behind bars – in the hope that they will be rehabilitated or at least be punished for their wrongdoing. The committee has a different take on things though. They do not see these women as hardened criminals, instead they believe that most of them were poor, desperate or merely ignorant about the law. The girls think they can remedy the ignorance at least and so with the aid of Women In Need (WIN), they have organised a couple of seminars for the inmates where topics such as basic hygiene and drug laws are covered. Ongoing classes also help some of the inmates to be literate. The children who live with their mothers in prison are also tutored. Vocational skills such as sewing and pottery are also taught. The results of these lessons are placed before me. Colourful and tastefully done, these bags, belts and assorted thingamajigs would not be out of place in the most fashionable of malls. “I’m very happy to see these women learning how to make all these modern belts and bags,” says Ms. Kumari, Chief Jailer of the women’s section of Welikada prison. She also adds that these skills will help inmates find jobs on the outside. Seema Omar or “Aunty Seema” is at the heart of all this creativity. She is a designer herself and produces accessories that find their way into places like Odel. The committee is determined to do these creations justice. They are planning an exhibition in June, titled “Through Darkness to Light”, where they will place all of it on sale. The exhibition that is to be held in the lobby of the school auditorium will be a fundraiser for the project’s welfare fund. Plans are in motion to use the funds to open individual savings accounts for the prisoners. These accounts would then be put to work as financial buffers for released prisoners. Guiding the girls are their teachers, Mrs. Amarasinghe and Ms. Ranwela. Last week Avurudhu celebrations were in full swing, and the prison grounds were the venue for the party of the year. Everywhere I looked I saw women laughing and running around. The Bishop’s College Interact Club sponsored the prizes for the game and from what I saw the competition was tough. There certainly was a lot of happiness and much of it could be attributed to the presence of these young students. “They remind us of our children,” say the inmates, who are very appreciative of the time the girls spend with them. They are especially fond of the movies the girls screen for them. “They all have families they love,” says Tasha. Abhilashini adds that she loves to sit down and work with them. These are without a doubt, the strangest of acquaintances the girls ever made, but Thilini explains how it’s easy to connect to these women and really feel for them. They show me a poem one of the women have written and I begin to understand what they mean: My
dear elder son, |
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