The boom swung open for the ADRA vehicle to enter the compound of the prison that houses pre-trial juvenile offenders. A smart salute later we drove in with 10 wardens lining the sides of the road to the parking lot. ADRA had slowly wriggled its toe into the tightly shut door by first doing some training with the wardens. The next step was to work with UNICEF's financial support to open a resource center for the children. Then our Education project stepped in and began running a school in the resource room. We have now been given permission to run an Experiential Learning program with the kids provided we first build a metal cage to hold the outdoor activities in. Today we were ushered into the main prison office and introduced to the top brass. We sat around the board table and they expressed the need to rebuild the prison to make it child friendly. Their question was, "Would ADRA find money to build a new prison so they could separate the boys from the 300 male inmates?"

I asked to see the prison and the young boys. I was taken through narrow passages, check points, into the inner snow-covered, barbed-wire yard and over to a drab-looking 4-storey brick building. Another security check later we wound up narrow stairs to the floor housing the kids. About 10 prison cell doors all painted grey faced large sunny windows with a strong mesh fence in front of it. The cell doors were solid steel letting in no light except for the little 8-inch square breather block above the door that allowed some dim light into the cell. I asked to see some of the boys. Would I be facing hardened criminals? The old metal door creaked open and 4 very pale young boys about 16 years of age stood to attention. The cell was so small that their sleeping mats took up two thirds of the floor space. An Asian-type toilet took up one corner and next to it a washbasin was plugged with a wooden bung. They received water once a day and had to drink from the basin and use it for washing too. I chatted to the boys. They looked so fragile and frightened. They relaxed a little as I chatted to them. How I wished I could give them each a fatherly hug. They expressed their appreciation for the ADRA resource room and school that gets them out of the cell for 3 hours twice a week. Prison rules prescribe that this is not to be exceeded. Before this they were only given 30 minutes per day in the sunshine in a tiny fenced cage. I was overwhelmed with a feeling of empathy for these kids as I visited in 3 of the cells. One boy had been in for a year and two months and had not yet been brought to trial. His crime: stealing $20.

It has taken us two years to gain the confidence and be given free access to the prison. Will assisting the building of a separate child-friendly prison be a further step in showing that ADRA is committed to changing the archaic Soviet-style prison rules and having the children treated humanely? I challenged the three colonels that together we should work to help these children reach their full potential in life.

"He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt and he won't disregard the small and insignificant, but he'll steadily and firmly set things right". "I am God. I have called you to live right and well,... I have set you among my people to bind them to me, and provided you as a lighthouse to the nations, to make a start at bringing people into the open, into light; opening blind eyes, releasing prisoners from dungeons, emptying the dark prison, I am God." Isaiah 42 (The Message)

Llewellyn Juby, February, 2005