PF Nigeria Unveils New Mentoring Programme

“If 100 prison inmates are released, 72 of them go back to the prison within a year,” Benson Iwuagwu, PF Nigeria Executive Director, announced at PF’s two-day mentoring workshop.  PF Nigeria held the February workshop as part of its “Onesimus Project” to address the high recidivism in the country.  Named for Onesimus in the Bible, a former slave whom Paul befriends and converts to Christianity, the Onesimus Project involves enlisting volunteers to mentor prisoners prior to leaving prison and continuing after their release.  More than 80 people participated in the workshop, which drew local press and prison authorities, including the Deputy Controller of prisons, who spoke of the inmates’ social culture and the overcrowding in the prisons.  PF Nigeria also recently completed a medical outreach project in which volunteer doctors and nurses treated nearly 400 inmates.