This document summarizes a program to enhance the lives of juveniles in a remand home in Port Harcourt. The remand home houses juvenile offenders, children beyond parental control, and missing children. The intervention program, run by a two-person team for two months, provides computer literacy instruction, basic education, community service projects, and mentoring to make inmates' lives more productive and reform them for society. The program has begun to change inmates' routines and engagement in positive activities, but requires more resources like additional computers and volunteers to scale up.

1. Enhancing the Lives of Juveniles in
Port Harcourt Remand Home
CATEGORIES OF INMATES
• JUVENILE OFFENDERS
• BEYOND PARENTAL CONTROL
(BROUGHT IN BY PARENTS)
• MISSING CHILDREN (YET UNABLE
TO FIND THEIR WAY BACK HOME)
INTERVENTION PROGRAM
• THIS YOUTH, AN ASSET

2. Introduction
 The Remand Home houses mostly juvenile offenders
aged 7 – 17 who cannot be sent to prisons for
offenses due to their age.
 Purpose of Remand Home is to reform offenders and
make them fit for society again.
 The Remand Home presently houses about 35
inmates, 30 of them male and 5 of them female.
 Government is responsible for the Remand Home
 Professional social workers take care of inmates

3. Challenges Program was Initiated to Address
 No formal education for inmates besides occasional
sensitization by social workers.
 A good fraction of time is wasted in worthless
chatting and could be boring and unproductive.
 Inmates needed some of the things their peers
outside the correctional system had access to which
they could not have due to their positions.
 The Remand Home was donated 3 computers by an
NGO but lacked an instructor and thus facilities have
been redundant.

4. Our Intervention Program: This Youth, an Asset
PROJECT SUMMARY/OBJECTIVE
 Our project is currently a two-member team run one.
 Project has been ongoing for two months now.
 Four days a week with at least 3-hours are spent with inmates for project activities.
 Overall Objective of Project: to make the lives of inmates more interesting, give them a
sense of belonging, make them more productive through creative activities, get them more
involved in building society to promote a sense of citizenship that will be useful to them
and society open release from the Remand Home.
PROGRAM AREAS OF IMPACT
 Computer literacy instruction (utilizing 3 available computers)
 Introduction to the use of the internet (using internet-ready computers of team members).
 Community service projects (environmental protection and sustainability projects)
 Civic and social responsibility education/mentoring (promoting citizenship)
 Provision of both an E-library and a Mini-library for inmates to read during leisure
 Basic science and language education (Mathematics, English, Literature, etc.)
 Research skills (using the internet for information gathering)
 Essay writing

5. Computer Literacy Program
 My partner and I currently utilize the 3 computers to provide
basic computing instruction to 10 of the inmates. Program is
designed to have fast-learning inmates taught first so they can
in our absence transfer learned skills to other inmates.
 By using our personal laptops connected to the internet, e-
mail accounts were opened for participants and they now have
an internet presence on social networks like Facebook and
Twitter and this excites them.
 Program emphasis are on MS-Word packages as well as
graphics designing using applications like Corel Draw. Photo
applications like Picassa and Photoshop are also taught as it is
envisaged that some open release may want to explore
photography for part-time employment.
 An electronic library with interesting reference materials have
been built for inmates use

6. Basic Instruction/Club Activities
 In the absence of formal education, inmates are bound to be disadvantaged
when acquitted. The program tries as much as possible to create of
semblance of the kind of education they are supposed to be receiving
outside custody.
 One team member provides instruction in Mathematics and English with
special interest in research and writing skills while the other team member
in collaboration with two of the social workers handle civic education with
emphasis on social responsibility and the need to eschew a life of crime.
 We designed two clubs, one for science-oriented students (The Science
Club) and another for art-oriented students (The Literary and Debate Club)
 Inmates spend 2-hours weekly on club activities. Science Club members are
mandated to take turns to do presentations on any topic of their choice
during group meeting. The Literary and Debate Club mainly do reviews of
selected books they have read from the Mini-library. Debating on topics
like Drug Abuse, Child Labour, Juvenile Delinquency among others which
have been scheduled for members are still in the infancy stage.
 These activities have effectively cut „wasted time‟, engaged inmates more
productively and made life in the Remand Home less „regimental‟.

7. Mentoring and Community Service
 Leadership mentoring was incorporated in the program. Inspiration is
constantly provided through the lives of role models like Nelson Mandela
and Mahatma Gandhi to steer them towards more productive activities.
 Inmates are constantly given responsibilities and assigned community
service projects like environmental sustainability to imbue in them a sense
of citizenship.
 Presently there are flower and tree planting projects as well as Keep
Borikiri Clean campaigns which inmates are involved in.
 A roster has been drawn for inmates to do presentations on leadership and
good citizenship. It is expected that through the computer programs they
can carry out researches and do presentations using MS PowerPoint. The
objective is to integrate all learning facets.
 Other students are presently involved in researching concepts like climate
change, food security and citizenship responsibilities and are expected to
do presentations to fellow inmates in the coming weeks.
 Inmates are being groomed to do presentations in January in at least two
secondary schools on „The Need for Adolescents to Desist from Crime,
Drugs and Alcohol‟

8. Results/Projections
 In our estimation, a lot has changed in just two months of the program. Inmates practically live a
„normal life‟ within the Remand Home and feel less like outcasts.
 The routine of boredom and non-productiveness of inmates has been truncated.
 At least 10 of the inmates are pretty familiar with basic operations in MS Word now. The fast learning
ones are already doing caricatures on Corel Draw. The fascination of inmates with computers brought
out some latent abilities like graphics designing in some of them.
 The Club Activities have particularly strengthened the bonds of unity among inmates. It is indeed a
delight to see them work in teams on a project to achieve collective goals. Members of the Science Club
are always too eager to experiment in one physics law or the other and we think it is bringing out the
genius in them.
 Community service projects actually gave them a chance to go outside the walls, feel freedom and
share a sense of pride in contributing to the development of society
 Many of the inmates now utilize the books in the e-library as well as the Mini-library and are much
better for that.
 Through the debates and weekly presentations scheduled for inmates to start January next year, it is
expected that a better sense of responsibility will be instilled in them.
 The Keep Borikiri Clean campaign where baskets provided by the Remand Home are placed on the
street with inmates occasionally picking dirt to encourage others to dispose refuse properly has
actually in our opinion helped in changing the negative way people around look at the inmates.
 Many children will also have been encouraged to desist from crime and socially untoward behavior
with the planned presentations which inmates are supposed to do in secondary schools from next
year.

9. Challenges/Opportunities
 The 3 computers presently used for instruction are particularly inadequate, we need
at least 7 as practically all inmates want to be involved same time.
 Program needs other volunteers to scale up activities for inmates. Presently only two
people are in this team but the cooperation of the original social workers in the
Remand Home has made the project move pretty smooth.
 Internet connection is at the expense of the team members and since we intend to
make projects sustainable we need a long-term approach so in our eventual absence
things will still be ok.
 There are still no computer tutors though our computer literacy program is
designed to train inmates who in turn will train others. The first phase of project is
intended to last six months and after that it is expected it will be self-sustaining
without the intervention of the team.
 We need book contributions on relevant subjects for the Mini-Library which
currently houses about 20 books donated by the two team members. We are
however exploring the option of involving the community in the Library Project
through a campaign tagged, “Donate a Book, Reform a Youth”
 Funds are also required to enable more community service projects be carried out
by the inmates. Proposed rallies will need banners and materials like T-shirts
preaching appropriate messages during campaigns.

10. Conclusion
 This Youth, an Asset a program let by a two-man team has operated for two
months now.
 Program initiated to make the lives of juvenile offenders in a Remand
Home more meaningful
 Program activities include computer instruction, introduction to internet,
basic language and subject instruction, community service, club activities,
among others.
 There has been a dramatic change in the house. Inmates use time more
judiciously, life in the Remand Home is now more fun, inmates are actively
engaged in projects that promotes citizenship.
 Support is still needed especially in the provision of more computers, more
books for the Mini-Library, volunteers to scale up activities, funds for
internet connection as well as community service projects.
 Juvenile offenders are indeed Youths that are Assets. We need to help
direct their lives away from crime and make them more productive to the
society as a whole.