Against the odds - the inmates studying their way out of prison
76 views · Published 10 December 2018 · 6:49 · Indexed 8 October 2026
Channel: AP Archive · 2018 · News & Politics
(5 Dec 2018) LEADIN From illiteracy to legal studies: a number of Africans are defying the odds and studying their way out of prison. A law project is turning even illiterate prisoners into their own legal advocates in a country where such assistance is desperately rare. The African Prisons Project says hundreds of prisoners have been freed in Kenya and Uganda thanks to their help. STORYLINE: Prisoners in Kenyan jails are learning law to improve their chances of release. The African Prisons Project in Kenya and neighboring Uganda was founded in 2007 by then-British law student Alexander McLean, who was volunteering in Uganda when he witnessed the sorry state of inmates. Many are illiterate and poor, with few resources to fight for themselves. Under the project, inmates who need it are mastering basic literacy and then encouraged to study law. Project staffers and inmates role-play in mock court situations while law students act as judges. Hamisi Mzari is a legal aid officer with the project who works with inmates at Kenya's Kamiti Maximum Prison. " These were people who were not able to access justice before because of their backgrounds. They were coming from families which could not afford either to take them to school and get formal education and so understand the implications of earning an honest living or, their families were poor to an extent where they were not able to pay lawyers. So as APP (African Prisons Project), the organisation has come in and empowering these prisoners to be able to access justice and be the ones to champion their own fate" he explains. The experience can transform inmates and change how others treat them, Mzari says "People are now seeing that the people whom we took into prison, whom we had considered that they are the litter and the garbage of society, they are now coming out as polished gold." 45-year-old George Karaba, had been charged with murder and sentenced to death. He says he had lost hope. Now he's applying for a presidential pardon and has become a trustee, with a leadership role among his peers. " Once I was sentenced to death, basically we lost hope, we were just done and it was so serious because during that particular time, they were still contemplating that they were going to execute the people who had done their appeals. And during that time we had really lost hope and we had lost it and we did not have anywhere to go and we did not have anything to peg our lives upon and it is during that particular time when we were still thinking of how, maybe we are waiting for the warrants to be signed, that is when APP (African Prisons Project) came around." says Karaba. Morris Kaberia was on Kenya's death row and feeling suicidal when he came across a program that eventually set him free. The former police officer had been imprisoned for violent robbery, and his protests of being framed went unanswered. In September, the 47-year-old was released after representing himself in court. He is now pursuing a law degree from the University of London. "Joining the program is actually the thing which gave me my life back," he says. "I saw that there is a possibility of thinking big ... that the walls cannot limit me." he told the AP on a visit to the prison. Between January and October 2018, eight hundred prisoners have been freed according to the African Prisons Project. Meshack Otieno, a prisoner at Naivasha Prison, says the project has changed his life. The project also helps former prisoners into positions where they can work to revise what they call unjust laws. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/9aebb056fce1e2950c5c434d32bb2180
