Prison inmates get sanitary wear
INSIDE Out Development Trust, a programme aimed at rehabilitating and reintegrating prisoners into society, is seeking assistance for the collection of sanitary wear and toiletries for female prison inmates and vulnerable girls in Bulawayo under the campaign; Women in prison deserve to be comfortable too.
The trust, founded by musician and copyright consultant Clarence Garura, who is also the rehabilitation and arts ambassador for ZPCS Bulawayo Metropolitan Province, recently launched a second album for Khami Maximum Prison inmate — Maurice Peterson — aka XQon.
The trust’s administrator and projects manager, Novuyo Saungweme told Standard Style that sanitary wear is every woman's right and appealed to the corporate world to take part in the campaign.
“We are rolling out a campaign under the theme; Women in prison deserve to be comfortable too, which aims to collect sanitary wear, clothes and groceries for distribution mainly to female prison inmates and vulnerable girls within Bulawayo.
“We appeal to the corporate world, organisations, faith- based organisations and individuals to join the campaign and help us collect donations for this noble initiative and the campaign runs until December and we anticipate making donations every month,” she said.
Saungweme said Inside Out Development Trust’s main thrust is to empower and develop prison inmates and exinmates into masters of their own destinies and they do the same for disadvantaged and vulnerable women and girls within communities.
“Sanitary wear is every woman's right and imagine, if due to economic hardships, a lot of women cannot afford the cost of sanitary wear, what more the incarcerated women and underprivileged girls?” she asked.
“We are collecting sanitary pads, clothes, toiletries and groceries, whose beneficiaries are vulnerable teenage girls, orphans and disadvantaged ladies as well as female prison inmates.
“Our director Clarence Garura is one of the very few men who have over the past years championed and advocated for upholding the right of the girl child. Having realised that the issue of sanitary pads was a great challenge in prison and he took it upon himself to take up the initiative to help them in that regard.”
Saungweme added that the initiative was birthed during the Covid-19 pandemic when they realised the need.
“We then launched the #GirlChildRescueMissionCampaign simultaneously with the #FeedBulawayoCampaign which saw corporates, faith organisations and individuals coming on board and helping us achieve our goals,” she said.
“We managed to distribute thousands of sanitary wear to vulnerable girls around Bulawayo and also to female prison inmates.
“We are targeting child-headed families, orphans, vulnerable teenage girls and women in prison even as we offer rehabilitation and life skills to prison inmates and empower the vulnerable girl child.”