CONTINUING its tradition of releasing a number of non-violent offenders from prisons worldwide, Food for the Poor (FFTP) has released a number of such offenders in Guyana and other countries for the holiday season by paying their required fines.Earlier this week, 120 non-violent offenders in Guyana, Haiti, Honduras and Jamaica were released from their cells when their fines were paid by Food for the Poor.
According to a press release from the NGO, Food for the Poor has secured the release of another 45 nonviolent offenders from prisons in northern Haiti. In Fort-Liberté, 23 men and one woman were liberated, while 15 people, including a mother and daughter, were freed in Port-de-Paix, and six more in Grande Rivière.”
The freeing of 45 men and women in northern Haiti brings the total to 165 nonviolent offenders who will be home for Christmas. Many had been incarcerated for several years because of their inability to pay their country’s required fines.
“It is a Food for the Poor tradition to release nonviolent inmates twice a year, during the Easter and Christmas season. The Prison Ministry Programme is based on the scripture: “When did we see you sick or in prison, and visit you?” (Matthew 25:39). We do this because we’re following Jesus’s example in the Gospels – it is the right thing to do,” said Robin Mahfood, President/CEO of Food for the Poor.
Since the inception of Food for the Poor’s Prison Ministry Programme in 1998, the charity has assisted in freeing, training and reintroducing nonviolent prisoners back into their communities as productive citizens.
“Many of these people are sent away to prison for stealing to buy food to feed themselves and their families. Putting these people who have committed nonviolent crimes in the same cells with rapists, murderers and hardcore criminals isn’t the answer,” said Mahfood.
Food for the Poor, one of the largest international relief and development organisations, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America.
This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 95 percent of all donations going directly to programmes that help the poor, the release added.