Alpha Nigeria held its first Prisons Ministry Conference last month. The event which was originally planned for a 100 delegates had a total of 193 delegates from 33 churches in attendance.
Global Prison Development Manager for Alpha International, Pete Jones led sessions along with Rev. Fr Kingsley Agada, Lagos Catholic Archdiocesan Prison Chaplain, Mr Oluwaniyi Emmanuel, Deputy Controller of Prison, Maximum Security Prison, Kirikiri, Barr Benson Iwuagwu, Executive Director, Prison Fellowship Nigeria and a host of other stakeholders in the prison industry in the country.
At the conference, Fabian, an ex-inmate who had come to faith through Alpha while in prison, shared his story. Watch Fabian’s story here
Some delegates shared their thoughts on the conference. “My biggest take-away is when Pete spoke about how to rehabilitate these people. It is a passion of mine, and it’s a very sensitive point because it’s very possible for the person to go back to the life they once lived.” said Bayo Adeshina
“The Prison Ministry Conference is a very good thing that Alpha Nigeria is doing. I am taking my learnings back to my leadership. We will go to the drawing board to see how best to work with it.” Prison Chaplain Vivian Ananaba.
Speaking about the turn of events, Alpha Nigeria National Coordinator, Andrew Olatunji said “We are so blessed for the reception and attendance of so many churches, volunteers and stakeholders of the Nigerian Rehabilitation System. It is our hope that those who are new to prison ministry are able to identify how they can contribute, and existing volunteers feel valued and appreciate the impact of their work in the lives of inmates.”
The vision for the conference is to see more churches in Nigeria committing to running Alpha in Prison and more Prisons in Nigeria accommodating and adopting ministry restoration and reform programs such as Alpha.
