INMATES GRADUATE FROM REHABILITATION PROGRAM AT KOLBE

December 24, 2007

The Ashcroft Rehabilitation Center at the Kolbe Foundation held a Graduation ceremony yesterday for inmates of the facility. Love News spoke to Chairman of the Foundation John Woods.

John Woods,Chairman of the Foundation :

“It was the 6^th graduation from the Ashcroft Rehabilitation Center. We’ve graduated over 415 inmates from that program. It’s an intensive 90 days program; 24/7 not joking at all. We’ve spent over 900 hours in classes listening to people telling them how to live their life. When they sang the national anthem yesterday, when they said their serenity prayer there was no doubt about the sincerity of the program. It was a difficult program and this was just a fantastic graduation ceremony. We had Paul Rodriguez as the ombudsman as the guest speaker and we also had inmates that has completed the program had spoke as a welcome and thank you and then we had the valedictorian Elrington Tex and he did a really, really good job.”

Woods says that the program has been a tremendous success compared to what it was like when they took over the prison. He told us more about what the inmates go through and learn from the program.

John Woods,Chairman of the Foundation :

“Out of the 415 that have gone through the program, 220 of them have been released and we’ve had 28 that have had relapses so we’ve running about 15% recidivism and that’s just unheard of in a rehabilitation program and we do about double that as an average for the whole prison and that’s half of what it was when we took over it. It’s a program where they go in and learn about themselves. They learn about the 12 capital sins, and they learn about the 12 step program on overcoming addiction. They are treated both physically, mentally and intellectually to understand the addiction problems they’ve had and what it’s done to them and they understand the emotional, what they’ve done to the ones they love and the ones that love them and they understand about the spiritual; that there is a God up there that loves them very much and all they have to do is ask Him. So it’s a phenomenal program. It covers ages from 16-52 and we have worldwide phenomenal success with it.”

Woods says that the program have seen civilians and officers of the Belize Defense Force that pass through the system. Kolbe Foundation host about 4 of these rehabilitation programs per year and says that they strive to improve and upgrade the program with every new intake.

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