Lunch in a Thai prison

Sawadee-ka Mariette!  Hello from Thailand again.  Where, yesterday, I had a delicious lunch at the Chiang Mai Women Correctional Institution Vocational Training Center!!!

Every morning, 35 prison residents - with varying length of sentences - and 5 prison guards travel the 10 km from the institution to a quaint, wooden house in the center of old Chiang Mai (Thailand's 2nd largest city), surrounded with tropical lusciousness.  Here, they cook and serve breakfast and lunch, as well as provide body and foot massages, as part of a rehabilitative program started by a forward-seeing prison Warden.

These prison residents' environment has no walls, no bars, no barbed wire.  Simply an opportunity to be treated with dignity while they learn a trade to exercise upon release.  As the program brochure says, "The [training] courses [...] build a foundation for good services, coupled with rigorous training.  This is the art and science of empowering those who used to think of themselves as unimportant."

This, coupled with a number of Thai massage places throughout town employing ex-prisoners, provides a sustainable journey out of prison for these women.  I celebrate this model built on similar values we exhibit in our programs:  to provide the character- and resilience-building skills needed to thrive upon release, as well as an environment in which the general public can engage with, learn from and receive services by prison residents, breaking through misconceptions and stereotypes.

Of course, my mind is wizzing with ideas I'd love to bring back to California.  There is so much potential when we let go of our idea of prison as only punitive punishment to step into a vision of prison as a space of healing, amends, learning and growth for a better future for all.  What would you wish to create that reflects this Chiang Mai experience?

I leave the last word to the program brochure again:  "They [prison residents] now have been inspired to grow past their mistakes using the given opportunities and finally make their dreams come true.  The knowledge will help them sustain themselves and their families, ultimately benefiting society in the long run."

Let's continue our work to bring this to California and the US!