One of the activities planned in the project is the training of psycho-social assistants who accompany children living with their mothers incarcerated in the women’s prisons of Ngoma and Nyamagabe. A total of twenty-five inmates and eight staff from the two target prisons had benefited from the training. For prisoners, those who have at least 3 years to spend in prison are selected; which will facilitate the implementation of the learning outcomes. The trainings took place on May 30 and 31, 2022 in Nyamagabe prison, and on June 1 and 2, 2022 in Ngoma prison.

In DIDE’s ongoing monitoring, it collaborates with prisons to reunite children with families. From January to September 2022, seven children have just been reunited with their families; where the three were reunited with their fathers and the four with the next members of their families: grandmother (1), uncles (2) and aunt (1)), and the activity continues as the children reach 3 years; they will be reunited with their families or if there is no family member, the process of finding them foster families continues
Some children are not yet handed over to their families, for various reasons:
Two live with disabilities and family members are not yet ready to welcome them (one child in Nyamagabe and two others in Ngoma);
Others have no known fathers, and other family members are unwilling to support them.
It also happens that fathers do not want to take care of their children (such as fathers who remarried, or who had this child illegally or irresponsible fathers)
There are others whose mothers are nearing the end of their sentence and prefer to leave at the same time with their children.
Also, some mothers are not yet ready to separate from their children; for such mothers, psychological assistance continues, because usually such a separation takes time, which could be long or short depending on the individual
Be that as it may, the child reaching three years old must leave prison to embrace family life; those who do not have family members ready to take care of them will be assisted to have foster families
Below is the illustration of some children reunited during this reporting period