Correctional Centre Visit

Visit to the lagos state correctional centre for boys. 

The correctional centre is located at Birrel avenue avenue Sabo organized by Nigeria Pharmacology student association(NIPSA) to teach the kids about on the abstinence from the abuse of drugs.

Summary

The correctional centre for boys is a home that shelters kids from the age of 13-17 who were picked from the streets as a result of being dumped by parents. Kids in this situation are taken to court and approved by the government to be kept in the government home, so do have parents but their complain for bad behaviours. They go through the court process and the correctionl home accepts them until they see changes in behavior before they are sent back to their parents.

Personal Experiences

Kenny Oni:

The the privilege to visit this correctional home was an opportunity for the project team to facilitate in a different setting. We have been to different kind of schools campaigning against drug abuse but this was different because those kids in there have been subjected to the harshest conditions of life and are most susceptible to abusing drugs. We were not allowed to take pictures for security purposes.

My experience with those kids for a short time tell how important it is for us to strive for the achievement of the sustainable development goals, especially goal 1 ,2 and 4 . My interaction with the kids was quite different from other schools, i could look into their eyes and see people with broken spirits, none of them had a reason to smile, so they never did. I asked tried to ask what their dream was out of 5 only 1 could say he wanted to be a footballer and the reason for that was because they play soccer in their home. The rest didn't even know accurately what a dream was, one didn't speak.

One of the saddest experience with them was when one of kids told me how smelling his inmate was and told me to"smell him and see" . Finally, i had to ask them what they see themselves doing in the future and one said  they had written their dreams on the wall "Impressive" but from everything i saw there,these were just statements written on the walls with coloured papers and not dreams imprinted in their hearts. This is becomes void.At that very moment, the question that came into my mind was, what can we do as AIESECers  and people generally as individuals do about it. It brings me back to our vision "peace and fulfillment of human kinds potential"

Its high time we stand up for the achievement of these goals not just with mere words or beautiful colours of the Seventeen SDG goals but with the passion and resolution to be role models for people in a world that we want to see. We don't want dreams of these kids written on papers but dreams imprinted in their hearts and a way to help them achieve them.

Temilorun Adebayo

When I was first told that I would be going to a correctional center,  I had mixed feelings; happy that I was going to be impacting lives again and sad that I was to be meeting boys who had at one time of their lives been exposed to drugs/substances. On getting there,  I sat and silently watched the attitudes of the boys. Theirs was of resigned fate.  They had accepted their fate and where they are. 

One particular person that caught my attention was Abiodun,  a deaf and dumb boy.  I initially didn't know he was deaf,  I noticed his sign language to another and I responded to him to in sign language. He was surprised and came straight to me.  We started communicating via sign language until I couldn't cope anymore. There and then, I appreciated myself and said a silent prayer of Thanksgiving to God. Abiodun, a very intelligent and interesting boy to be with couldn't tell me what brought him there,  he didn't want to discuss it and I respected his decision.
After our circle session with them he particularly came back to thank me.  For this I was overwhelmed and tears dropped down, both of happiness that I was able to impact a life and of sadness that he couldn't hear or speak to me.  His little sign of Thank you is one I will forever hold dear. Leaving them wasn't easy because I had gotten used to them in a space of 4 hours.  I promised to always go back to visit them and then Abiodun went for his lunch.

Mojolaoluwa Keshiro 

Kenny messaged me via the Whatsapp platform on 4th August 2017 saying, "Hey Mojo, we have a chance to make real impact, we would be going to a correctional home for boys to talk about hard drug Abuse". I was fired up as I knew this was our chance to make some actual impact. And I was not disappointed when I got there. It was a real chance to make impact. I delivered the major session by AIESEC Lagos on drug abuse and it was definitely different. I can say, I have stood before up to ten different schools on more than twenty occasions and this time was different. The facilitation techniques I normally use wouldn't work this time. I couldn't make references to their parents. I couldn't make light jokes about their houses or regular lifestyle, I couldn't talk about family or friends. I had to be careful not to bring up unnecessary memories. I realised the little things we take for granted change everything. At the end of the day, I was able to make them connect to the message. The real "advantage" they had over other kids I visited in schools was that they had the exposure. And from this exposure, I could draw experiences which I could reference to.

This event is one of our concluding events for the second phase of the WeCare Project.