The Spiritual Care Directorate is determined to boost its impact in Community Corrections through partnerships and empowering chaplains on their role in offender rehabilitation and social reintegration. Its mandate clearly dictates a need for engagements with faith-based organisations to ensure provision of integrated and holistic rehabilitation programmes to the offender. In the last financial year (2018/19) alone, the directorate signed Memoranda of Understanding with three denominations to formalise long existing partnerships. These partnerships assist the department to expand its reach in taking care of offenders inside correctional facilities and beyond.
Director Spiritual Care, Dr Menzi Mkhathini said Spiritual Care within the corrections framework in South Africa is a constitutional mandate. He said according to two scriptures in the Bible, Matthew 25: 36 and Hebrews 13: 3, their duty is a directive from God. “The church must take care of its members behind bars,“ he said.
DCS met for the first time with Conquerors Through Christ Ministries (CTC) when the department’s chaplains from all over the country and local senior managers reported for duty at CTC Ministries dome in Atteridgeville, Pretoria, on 21 July 2019. The chaplaincy community outreach service marked the beginning of a weeklong Spiritual Care work session that was held in Zonderwater Management Area from 21 to 26 July. The session was aimed at redefining the role of chaplains in reconciling offenders, victims and communities.
Michael Andile Kondile, a member of CTC Ministries, was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment and 74 years for the crimes he committed 17 years ago. He had lost all his family and plainly rejected by his child when he was recently released on parole. “I have lost my parents and siblings and my child rejected me, but this church welcomed me with open arms,” he said. His testimony was evident of the need for churches to take centre stage in enlightening communities about accepting responsibility of facilitating the process of reintegration for offenders.
Acting CDC: Incarceration and Corrections, Maria Mabena said it is imperative for churches and faith-based organisations to support the department in its efforts towards rebuilding relationships that have been broken between offenders and their families as a result of crime. She said Spiritual Care plays an important role in the process of rehabilitation. “We need churches to support us in preventing youth from committing crime in the first place. We need full time volunteers to help with rehabilitation, offer spiritual support to the offended by facilitating the victim-offender mediation process as well as provide spiritual upliftment and coaching,” she said.
CTC Ministries is a well-established organisation under the leadership of Apostle Jannie Ngwale. The mission of the church is to make people conquer in all spheres of their lives including breaking the cycle of crime. The church is determined to take up the responsibility of corrections and to partner with DCS in projects that facilitate social reintegration.
The National Chaplain’s Workshop looked at ways on how Spiritual Care can intensify these kind of partnerships. It focused on empowering chaplains on their role in the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders by streamlining their involvement in social integration and identifying and implementing Community Corrections Programmes for Spiritual Care. The refining of administrative tools, including reviewing the Spiritual Care Policy procedures, paved the chaplaincy’s way forward towards shaping the future of corrections.
The workshop was themed, “Rediscovering Pastoral Care: The prophetic role of Correctional Chaplaincy to offenders, victims and communities”.
