News & Views

Prison education. Family life and Civilization – a reintegration pathway

Fotini Kokkinaki
Martha Lebesi

On Friday 12 February 2021, the conference “Prison education. Family life and Civilization- a reintegration pathway” was successfully conducted online with a significant participation. The conference was organised by Epanodos and HumanRights360 within the framework of the Convicts Upskilling Pathways project, funded by Erasmus+.

During the conference, the Deputy Minister of Citizens’ Protection, Mr. Eleftherios Oikonomou, sent his greetings highlighting that:

“after two years, we now have a serious effort on the holistic modernization of the country’s penitentiary system and one of the pillars of our strategic programme is the complete, post-penitetriary policy and care”

Epanodos President of Board, Professor Christina Zarafonitou highlighted that “during the 36-month period of the implementation, the programme is aiming in the short and long-term reinforcement of employability and reintegration of a total of 210 convicts, women and men, in 6 European prisons of Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Netherlands”. Referring to the implementation, she clarified that “the aim will be achieved through the designing and implementation of innovative educational and monitoring tools, providing also the necessary tools for the evaluation of practices and the promotion of social reintegration”.

Through their speeches and presentations, the speakers covered all the spectrum of critical steps that must be taken to achieve a smooth reintegration of convicts and ex-convicts, and at the same time, they pointed out existing potentials and gaps, as have been recorded through their long-lasting experience on the field and the situation at that moment. Following a pluralistic approach, the three panels of the conference elaborated on education and employability, family and social supportive networks and culture as the main pillars of social reintegration.

In total, 16 interventions were made, and four countries were represented. With the provision of interpretation, more than 200 people participated to the online conference, which was broadcasted from Epanodos and HumanRights360’s facebook pages reaching over 3.500 people.

The works the conference and the analytical programme can be found here.