Tertiary education for ex-convicts

Lovemore Meya Herald Reporter
Devine Touch Trust has signed a five-year-deal with the Harare Institute of Technology to provide tertiary training for ex-convicts. Devine Touch Trust is an organisation administering a choral group which started in prison. The agreement between the 15-member group and HIT will see ex-convicts studying the Environmental Management, Renewable and Climate Change Research Centre (EMRECCRC) course for one year. The Memorandum of Understanding serves to provide a framework for cooperation and coordination between the parties concerning partnership on life skills development of ex-convicts and/or inmates.

Speaking at the signing ceremony at Harare Institute of Technology, the Dean of the School of Industrial Sciences and Technology Mr Perkins Muredzi said the programme is a noble idea.

“When we think about ex-convicts, it is not always pleasant probably to think about them. These are people who have committed crimes and were incarcerated.

“But when we think about them as humans like us, they need to have skills after the incarceration; they need also to get into our society and start to live. We cannot just abandon them,” he said.

Mr Muredzi said as Zimbabwe is already a party to international conventions that prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and environmental conventions, the MoU will provide a framework for co-operation.

“The MoU will provide co-ordination between the parties concerning EMRECCRC training Devine Touch Trust members in biogas production technology, post-harvest preservation techniques, and horticulture so as to ensure capacity building and sustainable rehabilitation or integration of ex-convicts in communities,” he said.

He said his institution will supply them with training and evaluation materials and offer them intensive training and on completion of the course, each student will be presented with a certificate.

Reverend Paul Gwese from Devine Touch Trust said they were happy to be in partnership with HIT in their endeavour to fight crime.