A bit of ‘colour’ inside
I like to bring simple card-making supplies into the secure unit of the Edmonton Institution for Women. The inmates enjoy the chance to be creative but, more than that, they crave an opportunity to make something to send to family on the outside. Life stories bubble up as they write in the cards, and I…
Adapting to changing volunteer realities
“This is how I am a Christian,” says Heather Driedger of her work with Parkland Restorative Justice. As executive director of the non-profit organization, Driedger provides programs for inmates at the Prince Albert penitentiary. Supported by Mennonite Church Saskatchewan, Parkland offers three restorative programs: Person to Person (P2P) matches volunteers with inmates for monthly…
‘I have no say . . .’
Leah is a lifer, and I like her. She is middle-aged and is at the beginning of her sentence. She is educated and insightful, and has a good sense of humour. But what I am impressed by is her heart. She cares about the young women with whom she shares the crowded maximum-security space in…
Building friendships and breaking down walls
It has been 30 years since Ed Olfert first set foot in the federal penitentiary in Prince Albert, Sask., but he wasn’t there to serve time! Speaking at a Parkland Restorative Justice information meeting held in Rosthern, Sask., on Sept. 15, Olfert told the audience how, in 1988, he sat on the Conference of Mennonites…
Paying attention to the invisible
Every month, several women from Charleswood Mennonite Church in Winnipeg go to jail. But unlike the women they meet with behind bars, they get to walk out of the barbed wire fences and go safely to their homes at the end of the night. Six women from Charleswood lead a Bible study for the inmates…
The Holy Spirit transforms prison
“My members are rapists, kidnappers, murders and fraudsters—all washed by the blood of Jesus our Lord,” says Pastor Ignacio Chamorro Ramírez. Chamorro is director of an integrated transformation program and pastor of La Libertad (Freedom) Church in Paraguay’s overcrowded Tacumbú national penitentiary. But he was once a prisoner like the men he serves. Chamorro’s life…
Reading books in prison
Seven years ago, two friends and I from Rockway Mennonite Church in Kitchener, Ont., agreed to begin a book club with inmates in the local Grand Valley Institution for Women, a federal prison. Except for breaks in the summer, every month since then we have made our way through prison security and along a maze…
An uncommon welcome
“As part of my probation conditions, I have to stay away from places where there are families,” says Joe Patterson, “so that made finding a church hard.” It didn’t help that when he was released from prison, he stepped into a society primed to fear and revile people like him. Politicians of all parties talk…
