Prisons ladies raise funds to support female inmates

The Prisons Ladies Association has inaugurated the Corrections Reforms Platform (an NGO) to raise funds to improve the lives of women and the vulnerable in the prisons and the society at large.

The organisation also seeks to ensure that female inmates and young offenders return to the society reformed and equipped with entrepreneurial skills to enable them to have sustainable means of livelihoods.

As part of their activities, the NGO would organise literacy and life skills programmes as well as legal literacy to equip female inmates with basic legal education to improve their lives.

At a ceremony to inaugurate the organisation in Accra, the President of the Prisons Ladies Association, Mrs Emma Dilys Sawyerr-Laryea, said since its inception in 2006, the association had undertaken a number of activities to assist inmates especially females, to enable them to cope with life in prison.

Skills training

Mrs Sawyerr-Laryea mentioned that the association organised counselling sessions to prepare the inmates psychologically and physically to help reform them. It also regularly donates food items and toiletries to the inmates. 

She added that the Prisons Ladies Association formed the NGO to look for funds to undertake its programmes and projects to improve the lives of female inmates, and the vulnerable.

With the support of the NGO, the female inmates who were already engaged in various skills such as bead making, craft making, among others, would be able to lead decent lives after serving their sentences.

“The organisation seeks to raise funds through collaboration and co-operation with international and local agencies and individuals to support the rehabilitation of the female inmates and reintegration programmes,” she stated.

Taking responsibility 

A lawyer and a gender activist, Mrs Sheila Menka Premo, who chaired the programme, said although there were both men and women in prisons, the impact of imprisonment was felt differently among men and women, with women facing lots of challenges.

“Preparing the women to stand on their feet is important. As mothers, they will have to be prepared to take responsibility for their children,” she said.

The Founder of the Salt and Light Ministries, Dr Joyce Aryee, commended the association for taking up the challenge to support the female inmates and said with the initiative, most of them could come out as better mothers and career women and contribute their quota to the development of their families and the society.