The Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment is doing more to help people who serve time in prison make a smooth transition back into society.
This includes ensuring some of them get the training and certification needed to secure employment, said Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment Charles Griffith.
He was speaking in the House of Assembly on Monday as his ministry’s $80.6 million budget in the 2025-2026 Estimates was the focus of the Appropriation Bill, 2025 debate.
Member of Parliament for St James North Edmund Hinkson asked what programmes the ministry has to help people who have served prison terms reintegrate into society.
“Only last month, I was at Dodds [Prison] to attend a graduation, . . . I think there were in excess of 30 individuals who did two programmes coming out of my ministry,” Griffith said.
“One was a digital media programme where persons were carried through the rudiments of using the camera, editing, things of that nature. And what I recognised . . . is that those individuals were very, very keen when they come out of the system to use it as a means of reintegrating themselves into mainstream society.”
He said the plan was to continue with such programmes, including working in conjunction with the Barbados Community College’s (BCC) Jean and Norma Holder Hospitality Institute at PomMarine in Christ Church “to provide training in bartending, food and beverage and one other area for persons who were interested in that particular type of training”.
“One of the things that the Superintendent [of Prisons] indicated at the time is that the programme was at that time oversubscribed, because individuals saw it as a means of coming out and getting back into society,” Griffith said.
“And the good thing about it is that they were coming out with a certificate that is a BCC certificate, not a certificate of participation.”
Marcus Stephens, coordinator of the ministry’s Block Transformation Unit, reported that his department was in contact with personnel from the Barbados Prison Service “who are interested in forming a partnership with us as it relates to tracking persons when they are released [from] the penal system”.
“Just last month, our intake at one of the institutions . . . had about five persons who were released from the penal system and are presently in programmes”.
“They are also seeking employment, and we are making representation on their behalf by drafting letters, [and] making recommendations, so that they could be better fitted back into mainstream society,” he said.
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