Felly Kimenyi
11 April 2005
Kigali — Social workers who recently trained on trauma management, counseling and prisoners' rights, will prepare prisoners to reintegrate into the community after being released from prison.
The Forum for Activists Against Torture (FACT), a local NGO, has trained social workers hailing from various prisons around the country in a bid to promote human rights in prisons. The National Director of Prisons, Stephen Barinda, urged the trainees to put into practice the skills and knowledge acquired in their respective areas of operation.
Barinda said the 1994 atrocities left behind many trauma-related problems on both the victims and offenders, adding that such training put the participants in a position to help the prisoners reintegrate into normal life after their acquittal.
In his remarks, the FACT President, Dr. Davis Kashaka, said this initiative was derived from the visits of the organization's staff to different prisons in the country and after finding an increase in trauma related cases, they decided to train people close to the prisons and prisoners themselves to handle the cases.
"Together with the Ministry of Internal affairs and the Directorate of Prisons, we want to have at least two social workers handling trauma cases in each prison because the inmates must also have their rights," Dr. Karegeya said.
He added that other training sessions would be availed soon since the social workers only received the basics due to the little time available, thus the need for intensive training.
According to one of the trainees, most of the trauma cases they have encountered include those of imprisoned genocide survivors bumping into their persecutors in prison.
"In such cases, both parties are affected and this is mainly attributed to the fact that both parties may be former neighbours and friends and upon meeting in the prison, they both get hit by trauma," said Venant Mpayimana, a social worker at the Ntsinda Prison in Kibungo Province.
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