Exploring purpose behind prison walls

’MATHAPELO TAKISI

MASERU – The office of the Ombudsman took visited female prisoners at he Female Correctional Institution last Friday as part of an initiative to celebrate and mark the end of Women’s Month. Seipati Putsoane, speaking on behalf of prisoners, said they are very thankful about the visit and encouragement.

“Your visit itself means a lot to us and it will bring great change into our lives,” she said. She went on to say they feel very important and loved to notice that they were remembered yet some people who close to them have not even bothered to visit them since they came to stay at the institution.

Brigadier Khomo Mohobo said God has given each and every person his or her own talent and gift and all a person has to do is to discover his or her talent to create a living and open doors for him or her. He said each person has a talent, gift, passion and purpose that need to be watered and taken care of.

Khomo said his main message is that they should discover their talents and they should write down all their dreams in a dreams book. “I do not have a dream that is not written”, he said, adding dreams should be in image form because a mind thinks in pictures.

He added that he always tells people that they should celebrate every achievement; achieving one’s dream should be celebrated no matter how little it seems because that is victory. He said women are family administrators and are very powerful people so he urged the prisoners to be the administrators of their homes when they get out of the institution.

Factors that help people to discover their talents include remembering what one loved as a child and opening ears to what people say about what you do best and setting your mind to it, polishing it and finally making a living through it, he advised.

Advocate Ts’ebeletso Motloli said women have a lot of important things to do. In particular, she said prisoners have left a lot of things unattended at home to serve their time in prison so she urged them to take this time as one of the important things they had to do in their lives.

“Maybe you being here at this time was for a good cause and perhaps this time is meant for you to discover the great women inside you that you are unaware of,” she said.

Mohloli said God did a marvelous job while creating a woman because there is nothing women cannot do so she told them to work hard to be better women when they go back to their communities and never come back to that place again.

She told them that people will always expect them to mess up but they should disappoint them and refrain themselves from committing offences again. “We will only fear you if you want us to,” she said. According to her, prison is not as bad as people believe and serving their sentence offers them time to introspect and should not be viewed as wasted time.

On behalf of the ombudsman Adv. Tlotliso Polaki, ’Marets’epile Motanyane said their main purpose for visiting the institution is to encourage and motivate female prisoners. She said God sent them there for a purpose because He knows they will touch many hearts.