Liberia launches UN-backed project to offer agriculture training to inmates

The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) today applauded the launch of an agricultural pilot project in the country’s largest prison as an encouraging step toward developing effective rehabilitation programmes for inmates.

“The farming initiative is a first step on the long road towards achieving some measure of rehabilitation for those serving terms of imprisonment in correctional facilities,” said the Secretary-General’s Deputy Envoy, Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu.

Under the pilot phase of the project, prison inmates will be taught farming skills on land inside the prison, and the food they will grow will supplement their rations.

Liberia’s Minister of Justice, Philip Banks, said the idea for the agriculture training project at the National Palace of Corrections resulted from a visit to prisons in Ghana initiated by Ms. Mensa-Bonsu.

He said he hoped the project would help inmates successfully reintegrate into society upon their release and that it signalled the beginning of more rehabilitation programmes in Liberia’s correctional facilities.

The project was initiated by Liberia’s Ministry of Justice, with support from the Ministry of Agriculture, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and non-governmental organizations such as German Agro Action and Catholic faith-based Caritas.