Sunday had been working as a cashier in a school when he was accused of siphoning the sum of #460,000 from his boss. He was arrested and was immediately arraigned in court where he pleaded not guilty to the charge………………
When persons are accused of committing offences, they are often secluded from the society and remanded in places where they are to serve out their sentences. These places are called “correctional centres”. The idea behind correctional centres is to rehabilitate these individuals and equip them with the necessary skills and vocations to allow seamless re-entry into society.
As an organization, we promote the use of rehabilitative and restorative measures in dealing with cases of criminal nature, to curb re-offending and promote criminal justice reforms.
The rehabilitative measures used by our organization Reja Initiative includes skills and vocational trainings such as our recently conducted ‘Safe Period Project’ at the Special Correctional Centre for Girls, Idi-Araba where the girls were trained on how to produce reusable sanitary pads for their personal use or sale. The Centre is located in Lagos State Nigeria and houses young girls below the age of 18 who are in conflict with the law. It was fulfilling for us to engage with the girls and to have met their needs.
The ‘Safe Period Project’ is an improvement of our 1st edition held in the female correctional centre Umuahia where over 300 women were trained.
With more projects like this, we intend to build a system where returned inmates can be easily integrated into society.
In line with one of the goals of Restorative Justice for Africa Initiative (Reja initiative) which is the sensitisation of stakeholders on the need for restorative justice, a comprehensive training was conducted for police officers in 2 states in Nigeria on Restorative policing and human rights.
The training was held concurrently in Lagos and Abuja in commemoration of the 2022 RJ week, which was held from the 20th – 26th of November 2022………
Restorative Justice for Africa Initiative was recognized and awarded the Innovators awards in Global Affairs in October 2022………
REJA Initiative is honored to have visited the Essex Community Justice Centre, Vermont, USA. The visit afforded us with an incredible opportunity to learn about Restorative Justice from an American perspective. We intend to apply the insights gained during the visit to our Restorative Justice work in Africa.
