Share the joy

Delivering the feature address at the Women’s Prisons 13th annual Mother’s Day function, in Arouca, Johnson said while it has been the custom to have only a small number of mothers celebrate with their children at the function, in the past, that must now change.

“It really tugs at me to see the kids here coming to come and visit with their Moms but it tugs at me even more when we have to choose a certain amount of mothers. We have to decide who comes out for the children to spend the day with and that destroys me,” she said.

“So, I am making a pledge, once I am in the Trinidad and Tobago Prison Service, that from next year every mother who has a child and is in the women’s prison would be allowed to have their children here with them.” Johnson expressed hope that corporate citizens in TT will rise to the occasion.

“I know corporate Trinidad and Tobago, if the problem is funding, corporate Trinidad and Tobago will cause this to happen.

We have a lot of good people out there and we have a lot of good people in here.” Underscoring her commitment to the rehabilitation of the female inmates, Johnson spoke briefly about her own personal trials to arrive at the function.

“I too, having my own struggles to come here this morning, this programme takes a lot out of me and when you have to deal with your own self and you still have to deal with all the other selves around you, it is difficult,” said a teary-eyed Johnson.

“I sat in my car outside there for about half and hour with my own mother trying to cheer me up for me to come here this morning because I was not supposed to here, I was supposed to go and do a procedure this morning.

“Several things happened and I decided I am coming to the Women’s Prison this morning because this is where my heart is.

This is where I ought to be.” Johnson thanked prisons commissioners for their commitment to elevating standards within the Service.

“We cannot continue doing things the same way all the time.

It is not working at all,” she said.

Johnson said Programmes and Industry was a major unit in the prisons service.

“We are working towards changing lives one client at a time because we have to do it,” she said. “We can no longer sit by and blame the police and blame the commissioner and blame the minister and blame the prime minister . We have our jobs to do and all we have to do is to do what we each have to do.” Earlier in the function, the inmates performed the popular Sinach song, Waymaker, amid rousing applause from the audience.

Johnson urged guests to internalise the lyrics of the song “If we embody the lyrics of the songs we sing and love and truly live it out, the world would be a better place,” she said.

In his address, Robert Payne, executive director of Prison Fellowship TT, said there there were many positive things happening in the prisons that are never highlighted.

He also called for a shift in the positioning of the Women’s Prisons Mother’s Day function to accommodate staff and their families.

Payne suggested a neutral Saturday ether before or after the week of Mother’s Day, which is held annually on the second Sunday in May.

Special tribute was paid to Soroptomists International for their three decades of service to the Women’s Prison.

Other speakers at the event were Assistant Superintendent of Prisons Avellina Kanhai, Superintendent Jude Gordon and Reverend Michelle Modeste-Homer.