Legal Adoption for Detained Citizens

23 Feb 2013 | Non categorizzato

• Five hundred prisoners have benefited from the project that has re-opened 300 court cases. These are prisoners who would otherwise still be awaiting trial and burdening the prison system.
• Three hundred law students took part in the project.
• Three hundred and fifty families of the prisoners we assisted by the students, health care workers and social workers.
• More than 200 citizens were redeemed through the project.
• More than 1000 prisoners have benefited from assistance through clothing drives, toy drives and toiletries.
• Articles, essays and awards

These are only some of the results (between 2001 and 2012) from the Legal Adoption of Arrested Citizens project and presented by Professor meeting organised by CeD Fraternity, Law and Social Change at Mariapolis Ginetta (January 25-27, 2013). This project seeks to face issues related to the penitentiary system in the State of Pernambuco, as they regard detainees – awaiting a court hearing – who should be assisted by Public Defense agencies.

These are real life stories of legal abandonment, of people without defense, but especially in need of a hopeful and noticing glance. One of the project’s constant challenges is to draw students to this situation, especially since the “adopted” prisoners have committed or attempted to commit serious crimes. Taking brotherhood as a political and legal principle to be taken into consideration, how would the law worker then operate?

Starting from an academic look at the professional humanization of law, and encounter takes place: the prisoner finds the way of having his or her human rights respected, which are often being violated (with overcrowding, for example, where 1,400 people are living in a space that was meant for 98); future professionals develop their critical sense and become aware of their power to change society. But above all a fraternal dimension is established between student and detainee, one that permits both to experience citizenship in all it fullness as this fraternity is joined to freedom and equality.

The Legal Adoption for Detainees Project began in 2001 as a result of an agreement between the ASCES School, the Tribunal Court of the State of Pernambuco and the State Secretary for Citizenship and Justice. Brotherhood was gradually considered to also be a pedagogical principle in the training of law students. The research group prepares students for accompanying a case before a jury with lessons on theory and technique. The methodology involves interviews with the detainees, their families and raises awareness in schools through the use of media.  

Moving from assistance of prison populations to a debate on fraternity, you begin to see how human rights and fraternity are closely linked because of basic democratic values, but especially for spreading a culture of peace. These eleven years of work demonstrate that it is possible to create a system for the protection of human, social and legal rights of detainees by working for the distribution of goods produced by social collaboration.

¨Enculturation¨ experiences

22 Feb 2013 | Non categorizzato

From the 10^th to the 13^th May 2013, the little town of ¨Piero” in Nairobi (Kenya) will host the ¨Enculturation School¨, a workshop that this year will have as the main theme ¨The Person” in various African traditions. Besides, a group of young people will take part in the first stage of the Project “Sharing with Africa”. In preparation for this event, we publish Giulia´s account of her Ugandan experience.

«Malpensa Airport, 2^nd August 2011: destination “Kampala – Uganda”. I felt extremely excited although I still couldn’t imagine that in the coming four weeks I would have one of the most beautiful and important experiences of my life. For a month I lived together and shared daily life with another Italian girl and three Ugandans. This obliged me from the very beginning to put aside all my ¨western¨ habits, every way of doing or thinking, in order to be open myself to them and their life. But what at first were just small sacrifices, soon became a treasure, a new way of thinking and relating to people around me.

I was touched by the African concept of person. For them, the person, the other, is at the centre of each event and action, and not time, doing things in a hurry, commitments. Therefore, for instance, a meeting will start when everyone is there, and not simply when the clock says its time, or buses will leave when they’re full and everyone’s on board, and not at a given scheduled time. “How can you westerners base your daily life on the flow of time, when it does not belong to you and you cannot control it in any way?” It’s a question that still echoes in my mind when, overwhelmed by the frantic rhythm of my daily routine, I risk to become indifferent to those around me.

A typical concept in Sub-Saharan Africa is “Ubuntu”, an expression that could be translated as “I am what I am because of what we are all together”. Nelson Mandela explained it as follows: “Ubuntu does not mean to forget ourselves; rather it means to ask ourselves: do I want to help the community around me to become better?” How wise these words are! And they are not mere words, but real life, daily life lived from the viewpoint of the “we” and not only of the “I”. Everything is shared, everything is done together, the neighbours´ children are like your own, and even a complete stranger who happens to knocks on your door by mistake, immediately becomes a part of the family.

I will never forget the emotion I felt when I was invited for lunch to one of my flatmates home: a house without a toilet, in a neighbourhood not very different from a slum. But the table was set and the food abundant, because no sacrifice is too big when you invite your daughter’s friends for lunch. Hospitality, reciprocity and sharing with the other are more important than anything else.

I left Uganda feeling richer than before. For weeks I was the foreigner, with a different skin colour, a different language, different habits. But I had always been welcomed, I always found a smile and an open hand, and I never felt discriminated, or out of place.

Now, when I meet on the streets many immigrants who live in my city, I look at them with new eyes: I try to put myself in their shoes. This portion of Africa that every day disembarks in Europe deserves that same, huge welcome that I, a foreigner and a white, had received in Uganda in the first place. It’s made up of sharing, of reciprocity, of Ubuntu; it’s something that goes far beyond simple respect for those who are “different”. Different, from whom? A few hours of flight and the “different” one is you, and you realize that we are much more similar than what we may think ».

Coming Together in Joy

19 Feb 2013 | Non categorizzato

Orders: New City Press (NY)

Coming Together in Joy

19 Feb 2013 | Non categorizzato

Orders: New City Press (NY)

Coming Together in Joy

19 Feb 2013 | Non categorizzato

Orders: New City Press (NY)

Coming Together in Joy

19 Feb 2013 | Non categorizzato

Orders: New City Press (NY)