Visit to Bvumbwe Prison

On 27th March Jonathan from Waverley Care paid a visit to Bvumbwe Prison to monitor the work carried out with prisoners by the Pezani Mwayi project:

Bvumbwe ( pronounced vum-b-way) is a small prison that was once a quarantine station for cattle with TB. Designed for about 100 young offenders it currently holds 290. Prisoners labour in the surrounding fields, mostly growing maize, and maize porridge is the prison’s only food source, supplemented with dried beans and peas. The main yard of the prison is open to the elements, with a lean-to on one side where a wood fire is heating up a massive vat of Nsima (maize porridge). The smoke and dust from the dirt floors blows in big clouds across the assembled group of young men, some wearing the remains of shoes, others flip-flops, but the majority barefoot. People wear a mixture of prison provided white trousers and dirty t-shirts and shorts. The guards all wear military style uniforms of brown khaki.

I attended an afternoon’s Pezani Mwayi activity hosted by the Tadzo Youth Group – who we are supporting to work in the prison as youth peer educators about HIV and Sexually transmitted infections. The session was certainly rowdy, lots of laughing and joking, acrobatics, drama, comedy, and repetition of safe sex messages.

Guys were doing triple somersaults on the bare brick floor, not a mat in sight; some of them were so thin it seemed as if they could actually float. Most performed barefoot. 10 of the prisoners had also been trained as peer educators, and they were the ones who led the drama – these are young men who have longer sentences (eg 10 years for manslaughter) as training those who are due to be released doesn’t produce long-term effects.

Recently the youth group had brought HIV testing to the prison and twenty-five people were given an HIV test. Two were found to be positive. Lots more young men were willing to be tested but there is currently a shortage of testing kits in Malawi.

No extra food or nutrition is available for those 18 young people who are living with HIV, and currently only one has a blood count low enough to need HIV medications. One of the peer educators told me that since doing the course his CD4 count (measure of his immune system) had gone up by nearly 200. He felt much more confident, and the guards were holding him up as a ‘model’ for others living positively. He had the job of looking after prisoners when they were sick, and making sure that they got treatment at the local hospital (there are no trained medical staff at the prison).

Many of the guards at the prison were young people themselves, I spoke to Wilfred and he told me that he had been through six months training and he was now in his first post. He is the person responsible for liaising with the youth group and co-ordinating HIV education for the prisoners. He was delighted with the success of the afternoon, joining in with the singing and dancing, some of the guards had brought their wives and children along too.

Whilst I was overwhelmed by the physical conditions in the prison, I could not but admire the commitment of the local youth group, their dedication and energy – and wondered how often this sort of peer-to-peer session happens in UK young offenders institutes? The audience was receptive and enthralled by the antics of the guys, there was a definite lack of teenage ‘boredom’ and most of the prisoners who had been trained as peer educators said they had done it because they wanted to learn more. There was an immense pride attached to their new ‘Educator’ status.