ANTI-BIGOTRY AND ANTI-HATE ACTIONS AT PENITENTIARIES
The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has conducted numerous actions promoting diversity and respect in cooperation with prison personnel and inmates.
Our activities include:
A series of anti-racist trainings for prison employees and volunteers at special workshops held in 2016 in Poland, Greece and Hungary. The workshops were a part of an innovative educational project E.U.R.O.P.E. (European Union Rapprochement for Offenders and Pupils Education), run with support from the European Commission in order to foster European and civic values among inmates and young people prone to marginalization and crime.
An honorary patronage to the First National Competition for Prisoners From the Inside, held by Civic Initiative ‘Pro Civium’ under the topic: ‘What would you say today to the person you have harmed?’ The entries were evaluated by a jury which included ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association representatives.
‘Pro Civium’ and ‘NEVER AGAIN’ prepared a special booklet for inmates. It includes information about assistance offered for former prisoners in their life after jail. The booklet was prepared with the following motto in mind: ‘Each person deserves a second change. The bigger the evil committed, the longer the path to forgiveness’.
The students of the Centre for Continuous Learning at the Penitentiary in Czarne, Poland, in 2019 prepared, in collaboration with the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, three exhibitions of posters and pictures about anti-racist themes. The first action was started by Michal, an inmate, who wrote the following words: ‘We say NO to confusing nationalism with patriotism in any manner! It is the first such project at our penitentiary and was met with a strong favourable reaction’. The second exhibition concerned fighting prejudice in sports, and the third one - the anniversary of the Kristallnacht, an antisemitic pogrom in Nazi Germany.
‘NEVER AGAIN’ has cooperated with Lukasz Glowacki, an inmate and author of the blog 37 Days. It is one of few blogs in Europe run from a place without Internet access. The main purpose of the blog is to present the prison reality from an inmate’s perspective. The author writes about philosophy, emotions and human relations. Some entries concern the actions by ‘NEVER AGAIN’, too.
We are open to cooperation on similar activities, our assistance may include:
- helping with preparing an anti-racist exhibition of posters, leaflets or stickers;
- providing past volumes of the NEVER AGAIN magazine and other publications for libraries;
- extending patronage to a football tournament for inmates, as a part of the campaign 'Let’s Kick Racism out of the Stadiums'.
We would be happy to discuss with you any other forms of collaboration, too. Please reach us at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .