NGO trains 120 Olokuta inmates on paint making, painting

Over 120 inmates at the Olokuta Correctional Centre have been trained in making of paint and housing painting.

The inmates, who received certificates after the training, were trained by a non-governmental  organisation for weeks

Speaking at the graduation ceremony of the inmates, the Deputy Comptroller of the Olokuta medium custodial centre, Akure, Mr. Charles Oyewole said the main aim of establishing custodial institutions across the world, including Nigeria, is to provide rehabilitation and correctional programmes for those who violated laws of their society.

He said the inmates  were carefully trained, urging Nigerians not to abandon them.

Oyewole, who congratulated the inmates, admonished them to make good use of what they learnt while in incarceration.

He explained that the training was sponsored by Anchor Heritage Initiative, a non-governmental organisation.

He said: “About 120 of our inmates underwent a training in paint and paint making and today, they are graduating, this is just to let us know that life in remand is not a waste, that something better can still come out of them and obviously as we can see , all the walls here have been painted by the inmates with the same paint they made by themselves.

“We can’t do it alone. I am also using this opportunity to call on other NGOs that those who are under incarceration, still have hope, they should come to our assistance so that we can partner to make lives of our inmates better, whenever they get back to the society”.

Oyewole stressed that the correctional centre has an aftercare programme to set them up after leaving the facility.

”One of the team members of the NGO who sponsored this training was formerly in  our custodian centres and he is now their ICT manager, managing their cameras, pictures and everything .

“So that is a typical example from them to show others that they should not loose hope.

Also, the Public Relations Officer of the correctional centre, DSC Oyewole Adedayo, said aside its statutory role of keeping inmates safe in the custody, it is also saddled with the responsibility of rehabilitation.

The Director of Operations Anchor Heritage Initiative, Mr Bidemi Oladipupo, said the organization has trained 1,200 inmates across the 13 prisons in South West and North Central states of Nigeria.

He said: “There is need for training in the Nigerian prisons and we could fill in the gap so that when these people are finally out in the society, they could be useful to themselves , useful to their family and to the society at large.

“So it’s just an idea of rehabilitating them and we are using empowerment as a skill for that.

“This is the fifth year that Anchor Heritage has been in Operation and we’ve been able to do this across 13 prisons so far.

“Here, we have trained about 138 inmates but in entirety, we have trained like 1,386”, he said.