By Michael Kofi Kenetey
The Nsawam Female Prisons in the Nsawam-Adoagyiri Municipality of the Eastern Region, with funding support from Blue Skies Products Ghana Limited and Women Rediscovered Ghana, an interdenominational all-women fellowship and life group, have inaugurated a new Nsawam Prison Ladies, PRILAS Day Care Centre for the Nsawam Female Prison.
The centre is to help educate and take care of the babies of the nursing mothers, female prison inmates, and female prison officers.
In an interview with GBC News, the Officer in Charge, IOC, of the Nsawam Female Prison, Assistant Director of Prisons, ADP, and Mrs. Victoria Adzewodah said the inauguration of the Nsawam PRILAS Day Care Project is vital as it has come to alleviate the suffering of the nursing mothers in the complex for the past years.
ADP Mrs. Adzewodah said the Nsawam Female Prison is constructing a diagnostic centre to diagnose all inmates who come to their custody and therefore appealed to NGOs and benevolent organisations to come and support them.
The Head of Foundation and Corporate Affairs of Blue Skies Products Ghana Limited, Alistair Djimatey, hinted that the Nsawam PRILAS Day Care Project fits into their strategy in helping to improve the lives of people, of which women and children are paramount. Mr. Djimatey reiterated that everyone deserves a good living, and the unfortunate children who are of no fault to follow their mothers to prison custody also deserve a good living and care, hence the need to help build the Day Care Centre for the Nsawam Female Prison.
The President of Women Rediscovered Ghana, Diana Asamoah Darko, reiterated that the project falls under their core values, which are to give to their poor and also to remember those in prisons.
The Greater Accra Regional Commander of the Ghana Prisons Service, Deputy Director of Prisons, DDP Edward Fiifi Acquah, mentioned that in order to achieve a successful reintegration for prison inmates, especially the nursing mothers, it is necessary to provide supportive and nurturing environment like the Nsawam PRILAS Day Care to keep their children.
This will help the female prison inmates to undergo the proper rehabilitation programs available without hindrance or distraction.
The inauguration brought together the Female Prisons Officers and the leadership, as well as representatives of other security agencies at Nsawam.
The Nsawam Female Prison was established and opened to start accepting inmates in the year 1973. It is the biggest female prison in the country that provides safe custody for female prison inmates and also seeks their welfare and reformation.
However, for the past years, the complex has no permanent place for nursing mothers of prison inmates for them to focus on their vocational skills and reformation activities. Moreover, it will serve as a place for the nursing mothers of prison officers to leave their babies for them to focus on their duties.
