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ALICE TAKES A LIBRARY CORNER TO A CORRECTIONAL FACILITY FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN

There are 88 prison establishments made up of 54 standard prisons, 34 smaller open-air satellite prisons, and one juvenile reformatory institution in Zambia. The Prisons Act of 1966, Section 56 makes special provisions for female prisoners with infants to be received into prison with the infants, and this places an obligation on the state to supply the infant with clothing and other necessities. ‘Circumstantial Children’ is a term that describes the female prisoners' children who come with their mothers into prison. They are not in conflict with the law but their mothers' circumstances place them in prison. To distinguish them from the children who fall in conflict with the law, the term circumstantial child is used to describe this group. A study conducted in 2010 (Simooya 2010) showed that about 6.8%of the females incarcerated were pregnant. 12% decided to bring their children with them in prison and this was because they were still breastfeeding and/or because they did not have anyone in their social network to take care of the child. In 2018, there was an average of 70 children in all of Zambia's correctional facilities.

The needs of these children include basic needs such as nutrition, education, recreation, and conducive accommodation as they sleep with their mothers in already congested cells or dormitories. Upon leaving the prison, the children (with their mothers) get back to the mainstream of society, but the children often end up living in compounds with their mothers, who in many cases are street vendors without any adequate care for them.

Alice, of the Zambia Library Service HQ Public Library, led a team to conduct an outreach literacy program at one of the prisons aimed at donating books to the inmates of the facility. On another visit to the prison, she enquired about the status of female inmates and requested to visit their facility. Seeing the circumstantial children made her sad and so she decided to act.

Since the time she enrolled in the INELI-SSAf program, her perspective on life changed especially towards rendering good service to the needy and underprivileged to improve their lives. After going through modules like Library Innovations, Community Partnerships, Change Management, and many others with a lot of guidance and support from the success stories of her fellow innovators and mentors, she found a new fulfilling meaning to life.

Alice and her team, all female librarians, initiated the idea of celebrating that year’s International Women’s Day and the establishment of library corners in all of Zambia’s correctional facilities for the betterment of the circumstantial children so that they could have reading materials. They engaged the Head of the Correctional Facility of the country to know how best to embark on and implement the project. The capacity of 7 members of staff and 10 inmates was then built, including project ownership, which contributed to the successful implementation of the project.

The Library corner at the facility is equipped with offline technologies that benefit all inmates and prison officers and there is now a place to access reading materials that support life-long learning and literacy skills for the circumstantial children. The ICT training conducted benefited 10 inmates and 7 prison officers who act as ToTs that eventually offer support to the rest of the women and their children at the facility. This initiative has opened the doors for the Zambia Library Service to work closely with the Prison Social Welfare Officer to know the needs to be satisfied and also created partnerships with other institutions that have already existing relations with the Correctional facility to ensure sustainability.

For security reasons, Alice was not permitted to take pictures of the Library Corner.

Alice proudly says that the “INELI SSAf program opened my eyes to possibilities of how libraries can better the lives of different sections of our communities. Going through the INELI-SSAf program has been an eye opener and I am a true testimony to what change is and what it can do”