Echoes Behind the Wall, a group of prison inmates from Shurugwi (Midlands Province) Whawha young offenders and Whawha medium, officially launched a debut gospel album entitled ‘Tariro Tsvene’.
Senior Prison Officer Kennerd Mabika stressed the significance of mentoring the talents found in the prison as it might be leading aspect to relieve prisoners setting them free from crime free environment.
“Mentoring talent is meant to guide the prisoners aiming to prove to them that what we teach them should be implemented making a living out of it. We have prisoners with different talents and there is need to incorporate these talents in the same race of economic world so that these prisoners would have backup as a way to earn a living out of it,” said Mabika.
“Besides providing psychological and mental rehabilitation, we recorded the gospel album so that we create space for the providence of spiritual rehabilitation to the prison family giving them hope of being non-failures,” explained Mabika.
Mabika further indicated that the album was released with a delay due to financial strains but Seventh Day Adventist church came to their rescue by assisting in the provision money to cover recording expenses.
However, this is unlike at Kwekwe prison. A prison officer who requested anonymity blamed the churches for not supporting the inmates in producing gospel albums.
“The churches are to blame here, because since I started to work here in 2009, I have not heard of any who released an album. If the churches help these inmates to release gospel albums, it would help these prisoners psychologically and there is a lot of talent in here,” she said.
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