Kakata — A non-governmental organization, Serving Humanity for Empowerment and Development (SHED) with Support from the European Union, on Monday, August 12, 2024, paid an official visit to the Kakata Central prison along with a huge European Union delegation and Liberia's Foreign Affairs Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti and others as part of its phase two project: "Strengthening Democracy & Respect, for Fundamental Human Rights of Prisoners in Liberia.

The Strengthening Democracy & Respect for Fundamental Human Rights of Prisoners in Liberia project is being funded by the European Union and implemented by SHED and RHRAP with the sole purpose of providing psychosocial support, vocational training, improvement of prison conditions for inmates among other activities in Margibi, Bong, Nimba, and Grand Cape Mount Counties.

The executive director of SHED, Mrs. Joyce Q. Pajibo, giving the overview of the project, said the visit of EU Ambassadors and other Government officials such as the Foreign Minister, Education Minister, and Agriculture Minister was part of an EU-supported project under the EIDHR instrument for democracy and human rights.

According to her, the visit was intended to view SHED's work over the last five years in the inmates' cells, records room, recreational center, vocational skills training center, and clinic as part of phase two of the EIDHR project.

She said SHED has been working with the Kakata prison for the last five years providing legal aid support to pretrial detainees through our team of lawyers, providing computers to the record rooms, supplying medical drugs to the prison clinic, and providing psychosocial support to inmates.

In addition to that, she further noted that SHED also works with community leaders and the religious leaders in the community, training them through the EIDRH instrument for them to be able to mediate some of the smaller cases and issues within the community to help with the decongestions situation of the prisons which are already overcrowded because of too many petty cases which could be settled by community or religious leaders.