AS part of a wider programme in support of prison reform, a team from Nations Inc. recently held a three-day workshop for 17 prisoners at Mazaruni Prison on art, literacy and entrepreneurship.

The workshop was part of the consultancy given to Nations Research Institute (NURI), by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to assist with the rehabilitation of prisoners in Guyana.

One of the workshops was on art. The art workshop was facilitated by Chris Bissessar, Ryan Ram and Kyezah Bhola, who are art students at Nations. The three days were divided between painting and puppet making.

A number of the paintings done by the prisoners are to be included in the National Art Exhibition to be hosted by Nations on December 11 and 12.

For the majority of the prisoners, it was the first time they had tried to develop their artistic talents.

During the three-day workshop Hodayah Stewart, Anju Vivekanandraj and Brian O’Toole presented sessions on mindfulness, anger management and conflict resolution.

Max Persaud also worked with a number of the prisoners to develop income generation projects to support them on release from prison. This was a follow up to a series of workshops that Persaud has provided in all the prisons in Guyana.

Throughout the three days, Andel Mathieson gathered video footage for an upcoming documentary on the programme.

Whilst in Mazaruni, the team also carried out a literacy survey to see the level of literacy of the prisoners. Two radio interviews were conducted on Radio Bartica about the project.