Minister speaks for juveniles
2007-05-24
“IT is a lie to say that all offenders are lying around and doing nothing. There are those who want to change,” said the minister of Correctional Services, Ngconde Balfour, at the official opening of the Ahlone House of Strength in Paarl last week.
The minister emphasised the importance of arming offenders with skills to make them better citizens.
“We are not going to send them to farms to reap apples. But we are going to send them to workshops, skills training and seminars to help them to equip themselves with skills to plough back into the community,” Balfour said.
He also pleaded with parents to teach their children moral norms and values.
“Say no to your children. There is nothing wrong with saying no, the minister said.
The Ahos project is the offender's way of ploughing something back into the community.
In 1999 Pat Martin, chairperson of the board of directors of Ahos, realised that there was no facility or programme to address the plight of abused children.
She called together a group of concerned women from the five member churches of the Athlone Institute, to pool their resources and see how they could address some of the problems related to the abuse of children in the Paarl area.
Intensive research was done, other projects visited and statistics gathered from the Department of Social Services, the Police and Paarl Hospital.
The Board of Management of the Athlone Institute Trust was approached and an appeal made for their support. Thus it proceeded that these women formed the Athlone House of Strength (Ahos) under the Athlone Institute’s new structure for the development.
Support of viable community projects came to fruition.
In October 2004 directors Jeremy Mattheyse and Kosie Sinclair from the Allandale and Drakenstein Correctional Facilities, respectively solicited their assistance through their restorative justice programme by helping with the building programme.
And last Thursday it all came together, with the minister in attendance, the Drakenstein and Allandale prison’s choirs and bands providing beautiful music and two young prisoners reading poems that they had written themselves.
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