UNIMA Literature students interact with inmates

In the spirit of ensuring that the education discourse is not limited to the classroom, a final year class comprising of Literature students from University of Malawi organised a trip to visit and interact with inmates at Chichiri Prison in Blantyre on 2^nd December, 2023. The aim was also aimed to engage in some charity work, through the donation of various items to the prison. The initial plan was just to donate clothes and foodstuffs to the prison, but the visitors ended up benefitting much more from the trip.

According to their course lecturer, Prof. Nick Tembo, who accompanied the 49 students on the trip, the group was moved by a willingness to help and motivate the inmates. Prior to the visit, the students engaged in fundraising activities, from which they raised some money. They used this money to purchase bales of sugar and salt, cartons of washing soap, bales of soya pieces, as well as classroom stationery for the inmates. The package also included numerous items of clothing that the students received as donations from well-wishers.

“We targeted inmates at Chichiri Reformatory School, which is within Chichiri Prison, as it houses a lot of youths that need material help, and that could use messages of hope and encouragement,” Prof. Tembo said. “Upon arrival, we learnt that there are over 280 juvenile inmates at the school. The majority are in primary school, while others are in secondary school. Unfortunately, there are only 4 qualified teachers.”

During the visit, the students interacted in different ways with the inmates. The male students engaged in a football match, while the female students played netball. The students also played chess, draughts and cards with the inmates. There were also classes where the students offered lessons and gave career talks. The inmates also took the opportunity to share their stories with their guests. This interaction erased the anxieties that the students had initially had about the prison.

At the end of the visit, Education Coordinator for Chichiri Reformatory School, Inspector Nyirongo, who acted as the host and coordinated all the activities, confessed that this was the first time in the history of Chichiri Prison for university students to visit the facility and cheer inmates. Despite the difficulties faced by the Reformatory School, which include shortage of teaching and learning materials and the inadequacy of teachers, he highlighted that one positive development is that inmates from the school have been getting selected to public universities consistently since 2017. In 2023 alone, two students have been selected to enrol at University of Malawi and Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences, respectively.

The representative of the student group, Japheth Karlos Alberto Abel, points out that initially, he and his fellow students were apprehensive and filled with anxiety, stemming from the gravity with which they understood the word ‘prisoner’. However, the trip turned out to be an eye-opening experience. “The trip offered participants with raw information and understanding of human experiences within the context of being imprisoned. As literary scholars, we learn of prison experiences through different literary texts, and this visit surpassed the boundaries of the classroom,” he said. “Through our engagement with the inmates, we felt more comfortable to call them our brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers.”

The excitement from the trip has led them to start planning for a similar one next year.