Pretoria - As part of Heritage Month, Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele will on Monday officially launch the Reading for Redemption campaign and open an Integrated Resource Centre (IRC) at St Albans Correctional Centre in Nelson Mandela Bay.
The Department of Correctional Services says the event will pave the way for the annual National Corrections Week, which is commemorated annually during September to create awareness amongst communities that corrections is a societal responsibility.
During the week, communities are encouraged to take responsibility for correcting offending behaviour at the foundational phase, which is the family and in the community.
Ndebele recently called on all organs of society to donate constructive books to aid the department's path towards the rehabilitation of offenders.
"Reading is one of the best ways to build character. The books will be used to instil a culture of reading and learning among the offenders. We want to encourage inmates to read and study.
"The emphasis of Correctional Services is on correction and all of us can be corrected. We must create an environment in correctional facilities that contributes to offenders becoming better than what they were, thereby ensuring a better South Africa," Ndebele said.
IRCs are being established at various correctional centres in order to foster a culture of learning, reading and knowledge sharing for both offenders and officials.
The IRCs will serve as knowledge hubs to promote human capital investment, and support the department's development and rehabilitation objectives by improving the offenders' prospects of acquiring skills that could make them competitive in the job market after serving their sentences.
"As government, we are passionate about galvanising understanding and support for our transformative agenda from prisons to corrections, and preparing those of our offenders who need to get ready to be reintegrated as functional members of society.
"As the reading culture in our country remains minimal, the department is working towards promoting a culture of reading and writing in our correctional centres and to project reading as a fun activity that expands horizons of knowledge for both offenders and officials," said Ndebele.
The minister said they were also working towards holding book debates, where offenders would be given books to read and thereafter engage in discussions and debates about the books.
"We are looking forward to this kind of engagement, including that such activities will become part of the daily lives of our offender communities. Let us continue to work together to build a reading offender population because a reading nation is an empowered nation," Ndebele said.
