After having spent a week in Ethiopia my journey continued south, to Lusaka in Zambia.
My presidential motto is Step-by-Step, Mouth-to-Mouth and Face-to-Face. I chose it when I got elected president, because this is how we as chaplains work with inmates:
We approach them step by step, and if they feel that their meeting with the chaplain was good. If they felt safe and wanted to take part in services and other prison chaplain related activities, they will most likely tell their fellow inmates – so the word spreads mouth to mouth. And we get to meet even more inmates face to face.
This is also how IPCA is growing.
Being a part of this, getting to meet chaplains from different part of the world is a privilege for me. But at the same time good for members of IPCA, that they get seen and encouraged in their work.
My visit to Zambia was exactly about that. Those from the steering committee that was in Zambia and I got to meet around 25 prison chaplains in the Mwembeshi prison outside Lusaka. Some of them where serving there and others had arrived for the annual prayer event. Our visit was hosted by the IPCA National Chairman in Zambia, Reverend Barry Marko Phiri, the assistant prison commissioner Reverend Samuel Zulu who oversees prison chaplaincy in Zambia and their teams. The prison governor had a presentation about the programs that they have at Mwembeshi, which is an open facility where they train inmates to be able to work at farms after release.
Later that day we got to meet Kaumba Akosua Akuffo from the Penal Reform Institute, PRI and “The International Network of Formally Incarcerated Women”. We had a very interesting conversation with her, about here work and about what is called “Expert by Experience”. Having been incarcerated gives a lot of knowledge – good and bad of course – that those of us not having been in prison cannot fully comprehend. It is easy to understand the impact of having your freedom taken away, but maybe not as easy to understand how big impact a simple thing as for instance having the phone call you have been waiting for all day cancelled. “It is just a phone call”. “You can call tomorrow”. No it is not “just a phone call” – there and then it might feel as one’s entire life.
I meet Akosua at the Crime Congress in Abu Dhabi a month ago, when she was a panellist at a PRI event. To be able to meet her again and put her in contact with both IPCA Zambia and IPCA Africa was a great opportunity to put my motto to life as well. From this meeting, not only new contacts were made. But new ideas as and future collaborations where discussed.
The Steering Committee also had our face-to-face meeting while we were in Lusaka – some of us at site, some online. So, the plans for our next Worldwide conference 2030 have started.
Marie-Louise Norozi
President/CEO