‘… advance education, scholarship, knowledge and understanding by teaching and research, for the benefit of individuals and society at large’
Royal Charter, University of Hull, 1954
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http://www2.hull.ac.uk/pws4/hideplan/strategic_plan/our_vision_and_mission.aspx
CONCAES (Prison Fellowship Spain) is a non governmental organization founded in 1990 that develops a humanitarian social work aimed at building a reconciling community of all those involved and affected by crime as part of the targeted treatment of offenders and victims, and introducing behaviors based on forgiveness and reintegration that lead the perpetrator of the crime and the victim to change and have a new lease on life.
We have more than 40 volunteers working in tree prisons with these workshops and activities:
Inside Prison:
- Cineforum
- Book Club
- English Classes
- Correspondence
- The Prisoner’s Journey
- Legal Advice
- Work and Social Training
Sentencing Alternatives:
- Community Service
Victim Assistant:
- Distribution of food stuff
- Angel Tree
- School Materials
- “Recicl-arte” Handicraft for children
All these programs are made possible by the help of organizations, churches, private partners, and well-qualified volunteers.
For more information about our organization or one of our programs you could reach us by e-mail: concaes@concaes.com or by phone: 0034-91-1722309
Chartered in 1993 Prison Fellowship The Netherlands grew to a professional leaded volunteer organization, with around 540 volunteers. The mission of each staff member and volunteer is to treat and see a prisoner as a human with human dignity, despite of his deviant behavior. A keyword of the vision of our work is perspective. We want to help prisoners, forensic psychiatric patients and their family to keep perspective on their future. Justice is not only punishment, but also restoration (personally and socially). Perspective with responsibility for the past and the future. PF The Netherlands has got several programs:
- Care for (ex)prisoners: volunteers are visiting prisoners until six months after release;
- Care for forensic psychiatric patients: volunteers are visiting these patients to provide a ‘normal’ contact with the outside world;
- Family care: volunteers are visiting families of prisoners to support and to listen;
- Job coaching: two professionals are coaching prisoners by preparing a CV and searching for employers. Volunteers can support this process;
- Restorative Justice: a course during which prisoners or delinquents are talking about items like guilt, shame, responsibility, victimization, forgiveness and restoration of injury (in any way). In the European project Building Bridges (2014-2016), this course will be transformed to a programme for equal numbers of victim and offender participants. Read [here] more about Building Bridges in The Netherlands.
All of our volunteers are trained and coached by professional social workers.
For more information about our organization or one of our programs you could reach us by e-mail: info@gevangenenzorg.nl or by phone: 0031-79-3310568
PF The Netherlands is member of Prison Fellowship International: globallink.pfi.org/
CONFIAR is a Public Utility Institution of Social Solidarity, recognized by the Portuguese Government, since 28.Oct.1999 with about 100 particular and collective associates, address in Bairro do E.P. do Linhó,13, Alcabideche – Cascais.Our Mission is to provide spiritual, moral, social, material, and cultural and assistance to the Inmates, ex-Inmates and their families, with the aim of contributing to their reinsertion in the community and personal dignification.
Please, join us: www.confiar-pf.pt
Prison Fellowship Hungary
On the 2nd of November, 1992 The Prison Fellowship Hungary was formed in the building of the Parliament on the initiative of Gábor Roszik with the company of the candidates of that time and voluntary missionaries serving in prisons. In September, 1993 we gained the admission into the organization of Prison Fellowship International which has member organizations in more than 140 countries. Prison Fellowship Hungary is an independent and interdenominational NGO well known across Hungary, working in cooperation with the Hungarian Prison Administration.
Activities and target group
The activity of the prison ministry is aimed at all of those people whom a committed crime concerns or relates to that:
- Convicted, prisoners, released
- Relatives, families of convicts, prisoners, children of inmates and released prisoners
- Victims and their families
- Organizations and their members, directly related to prisoners: staff of penal institution, justice, police
- Community of believers, churches, congregations and society
Outcomes
- Unique cooperation and good relationship with partner agreement based on trust amongst the penal institutions in Hungary
- Positive change of the spirituality of law enforcement
- Voluntary missionary network: more than 300 members in 30 prisons through the whole country
- Conferences, trainings, twice a year, with around 80 participants
- Active programs: Summer camps for prisoners’ children, Sycamore Tree Project, APAC program, Joseph-program, Angel Tree program, Bible Competition for prisoners all over Hungary, Week of Prayer
- Establishment of prison priesthood and cooperation with them
- Publications and distribution of religious literature to prisons
Prison Fellowship Italy is part of the wider world organization Prison Fellowship International (PFI), based in the United States, which has been operating for over thirty years in prison and is active in more than 116 national offices worldwide. The foundation in Italy was done the 7th December 2009 in Rimini, at the XXXIII National Conference of the Catholic movement, Renewal in the Spirit (RNS). During the Conference, the Director of RnS Marcella Reni – chair lady of Prison Fellowship Italy – has welcomed the World President Ronald W. Nikkel PFI within the symposium dedicated to evangelization in prisons. Prison Fellowship International was born in 1976, through the work of Charles W. Colon (right hand of the President Richard Nixon and involved in the case of Watergate) who embarked on a mission for recovery and rehabilitation of prisoners, including through the evangelization of the prisons, the last place where to stay.
From Prison Fellowship a number of local indigenous organizations have branched, they were tied to a particular social setting that would take account of the needs of the prison system of each country. So a trans-confessional voluntary organization that considers the religious affiliation of the detainees. What inspired the founder Ronald Nikkel and his collaborators is the first work of recovery and revaluation of the prisoner that starts from the dignity of man, by his condition as a child of God regardless of the particular religious denomination. Since 1976, Prison Fellowship International has based his message of a God who is common to all, entering the realities of different countries by appealing to the spiritual dimension of man. In Italy the goal is to develop some of the projects carried out by the international organization, identifying a starting point in the Sycamore Tree Project – as a means of intervention to repair some of the damage caused by the crime and to provide benefit to the victims, in this case, the actors involved are the inmates but also the victims of crimes. http://www.prisonfellowshipitalia.it/
Prison Fellowship Czech Republic (Mezinarodni Vezenske Spolecenstvi – MVS) was founded in November 2010 and became an affiliate of the worldwide organization Prison Fellowship International in summer 2011. MVS is a Christian ecumenical social movement and cooperates with church denominations within the country, as well as state and non-profit organizations. MVS targets prisoners and their families (especially children), ex-offenders, victims of crime and all those affected by crime (e.g. prison personnel and chaplains). MVS strives to reduce the social, material and spiritual harm caused by crime and incarceration, which affects offenders and their families as well as victims of crime. MVS programs include: Angel Tree, a program in which gifts are sent to children of inmates with a personal letter from the parent included with the gift; pre- and post-release programs; Club for ex-offenders; ongoing collection of hygienic items for women inmates; letter writing and sending of parcels by volunteers; Sycamore Tree project, a program of restorative dialogue between victims and offenders of unrelated crimes; program of support of the mothers’ and children’s unit in the women’s prison; concerts within various prisons; Five Faces of the Wall annual benefit concert in which individuals share their stories, between musical sets, from one of five groups of people affected by crime – victims, offenders, ex-offenders, prison employees, and families of inmates.
web: www.prisonfellowship.cz/ e-mail:info@prisonfellowship.cz phone: 00420/602 308 210
Seehaus – Juvenile Prison in Free Forms (Germany)
Residential Programme for Juvenile Delinquents as Alternative to Prison
Starting Point
Crime is a problem of the whole society. Imprisonment is necessary for some cases. A high recidivism rate after imprisonment shows, that especially new concepts and forms are necessary – especially for juveniles. For such a concept the needs of all groups involved have to be taken in consideration – the needs of victims, the community, offenders and their families.
Goals
In Germany it is possible that juvenile offenders can serve their prison term in a programme of a NGO. 14-21 year old juvenile boys who are sentenced to a prison term of around 2 years will be eligible for the programme. After being sent to prison they will have to apply for the programme. A committee of prison staff will decide whether somebody is eligible for the programme. Seehaus can decide whether they take the person in. He will then stay for 12-18 months in the Youth Farm “Seehaus”.
The aim of the programme is that the juveniles learn how to live a life without crime. The juveniles have to learn, to take on responsibility.
• for their
• for the present
• for the future
• before God and fellow human beings
The programme
The young offenders are separated from older prisoners in order to protect them from negative influence. They are housed in an old farm – the Youth Farm “Seehaus”. They live in groups of 5-7 students together with a family or house parents. Through a positive group concept they learn to take on responsibility for themselves, for each others and for the programme.
The perspective of victims is shown to the students. Restoration, Community Service and Victim-Offender-Reconciliation-Meetings help the students to take on responsibility for their crimes and give a (symbolic) restitution towards the victim and the community. In order to give a good foundation for their future life, the students are challenged in the following areas:
- School: the students receive school education with the goal to get their High School Diploma.
- Work & Vocational Training: the students help to renovate the historic buildings on the property, they can choose between different workshops and get vocational training in the area they have chosen.
- Athletics: through athletic activities the feeling of self-worth can be increased, legitimate ways of receiving affirmation within the community and they learn to practice a team spirit.
- Leisure time activities: the students learn how to use their free time by meaningful leisure time activities.
- A change of life style can be reached best by a change of the norms and values of a person. Staff and volunteers of Seehaus live a Christian life style and show by their example what it means to put Christian norms and values into practice and to live as a Christian. These norms and values can also be internalised through devotions, church services and other Christian programmes.
- Integration into the community is reached by a cooperation with Churches, youth groups, athletic clubs, NGOs and with the local economy.
- Volunteers play an important role in the lives of the students. Godparenting, mentoring, study groups and leisure time activities are some of the activities which are offered by volunteers.
Seehaus e.V. is member of Prison Fellowship International (PFI), a global association of 125 national member organisations. With more than 50,000 volunteers Prison Fellowship works for the spiritual, moral, social and physical well-being of prisoners, ex-prisoners, their families and victims of crime. The national organisations are indigenous, volunteer-based and transdenominational. PFI maintains “special consultative status” with the UN Economic and Social Council and is part of the UN Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.
MAKAM RESEARCH
Founded in 1998, MAKAM Research took just a few years to established itself as a partner throughout Austria for quantitative and qualitative market research and in mystery research for companies and institutions that place great importance on quality, flexibility and personal advice and support. We guarantee these benefits through a dedicated team with interdisciplinary expertise, through the use of state-of-the-art technologies (e.g. CATI studio, online survey tool, high-end recording equipment), our universal approach from concept and questionnaire development through fieldwork for data analysis, and right through to detailed interpretation of all results through comprehensive quality control checks at all stages of the project.
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