This training course organized by the Judicial Training Center and the Ministry of Justice (National Directorate for Correctional Services and Social Reintegration) was funded jointly by the United Nations Development Programme and the European Commission. The training was aimed to upgrading participants in more perfected techniques for a more efficient intervention in prison institutions for the implementation of the prison policy.

In order to achieve this goal, it was defined as a general objective to equip the trainees with knowledge, technical and professional skills, so as to respond to the prison system through the creation and maintenance of conditions of social attendance of the prisoners.

The course was structured in seven modules, namely the Individual Follow Up of Inmates; Ethic and Professional Deontology; Inmates Psychology; Prison Organization and Penitentiary Law; Prison Security; Prison’s Social Work; Basic Notions of Law.

Additionally, there were presentations on the Emergence and the Role of Prisons; The Rights and Duties of Inmates; Correction and Social Integration; Social Diseases (HIV/AIDS), Positive Lives; Gender and Development; and Attendance to Inmates with Special Education Rights in Prison Establishments.

A total of 20, all civil servants from the National Prison Services, coming from different Prison Establishments of all provinces, attended the event, including 5 women, corresponding to 25% of the total.

During the closure, the representative of the trainees said, “we are convinced that the task entrusted to us is full of challenges. However, we pledge to carry them out with diligence.”

“Thus, it is with expectation that we aspire to get support from the relevant bodies in terms of sensitizing the accommodation and follow up of the tasks in this area, the object of training”, concluded the representative.

The Project “Supporting Citizens Access to Justice” is the result of coordinated work and complimentary country programmes of UNDP Mozambique and the EC Delegation in Mozambique, which have identified support to Good Governance and Democracy, including Human Rights as their priorities.

The project is designed to maximize the effect of support to the poorest and vulnerable sections of the population and to avoid duplication with other donors. These two combined objectives have led the project to focus on the broad areas of Penal Justice and Decentralization.

To accomplish these objectives the project is composed of six sub-projects, namely: Administration of Justice at the Local Level; Correctional System; Organization Against Crime; Human Rights; Women Rights and HIV/AIDS related legal issues.

The project aims to create the basis for a coordinated penal justice system where policies are discussed both at central and decentralized levels, where justice lessons from the decentralized levels feed the central level, and most importantly, creates a penal justice system engaged in a culture of harmonization of policies, participation and consultation.

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