Eu Grant To Help Former Inmates

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The European Union Delegation to T&T has bestowed a €100,000 (TT$783,000) grant to Vision on a Mission to extend its pre-release and resettlement programme for former inmates.

In a press release earlier this week, the delegation said that the NGO was selected based on its decades of work with the Prison Service and Ministry of National Security.

EU Ambassador Aad Biesebroek, who spoke at the event, said that the grant was just one of several local human rights initiatives supported by the EU over the past three years.

“Second chances are important. This project ensures that rather than slipping through the cracks and falling into recidivism, ex-offenders will be given the opportunity to reintegrate and make positive contributions to society,” Biesebroek said.

The others local projects supported by the EU included research on the death penalty, support of single fathers seeking to maintain contact with their children and the promotion of gender equality and the reduction of discrimination based on sexual orientation. The organisation’s founder Wayne Chance said he was pleased after his organisation was selected.

“There are very stringent measures to qualify and we are very happy that we could have met the international standards to qualify,” he said.

He said that the application was made because they felt that its current pre-release programme could not provide the skills and training required for reintegration into society.

“For a lot of those leaving the prison, the impact of their imprisonment and the programmes they were exposed to were not all that sufficient to make them marketable,” Chance said.

He said that under the new two-year programme, former inmates would be trained in food and agro-processing.

“We are going to work with 70 persons to help them become entrepreneurs,” Chance said as he stated that the aim of the programme is to be sustainable.

The grant will go to setting up the programmes, hiring staff to facilitate it and establishing an outreach centre in San Fernando. While he said the organisation was thankful for the support of the EU and its Government subvention, Chance called on corporate entities to partner with it