Romania Freedom for a day

Project : Romania 21 Jun 2011 | juvenile justice psychosocial

27 May, 2011, Jilava prison, Romania: in anticipation of the International Children’s Day, the Bucharest team of MOVE together with another NGO partner, Youth for Justice, were invited to animate the event which permitted prisoners and their children to meet outside the gloomy context of the prison.

The event was open for prisoners and their kids, accompanied by their mothers, but also for other 23 minors and young prisoners in custody at Jilava. In this occasion, the Move, Games and Sport methodology showed that it has no limits of space and that, moreover, the game creates and recreates new bonds between persons and families separated by the impenetrable walls of a prison and by the burden of the convictions.

Through the magic circle game they all entered for a while in an alternative space, where emotions could be freely expressed: the children (between 4 and 11 years old) had the chance to play again with their parents imprisoned for unknown periods of time, the prisoners remembered that they are also parents and while enjoying this special moments with their kids tears were falling from their eyes.

The young prisoners and the minors detained experienced something close to their age – the ball in five passes, the dragon, raindrops sound, etc. At the end of the activity, they all had the opportunity to share their feelings during feedback time, and their intense living of the moment was also felt by the MOVE animators, touched by this flow of emotions.

One of the happiest moments of the day was marked by the gifts offered by Tdh: children got wooden toys and balloons, while the young prisoners and minors got strategic cube games. The gifts that cheered them most were the footballs donated by Tdh, the toys that will fill the empty spaces of their free time during detention.

Time ran quickly, but the closing moment left the space to a moment of special drawings: the prisoners exchanged drawings with their children and vica versa, as a memory of the connection that this day made possible for them. The young prisoners, instead, made their own hand shape on a paper, and the MOVE animators wrote inside a small thought to remember…In return, the animators got some drawings made especially for them, like the one of the rose – speaking about their nostalgia for love, for nature, for beauty, for innocence, for all that life in the outside world means for them…

This day was dedicated to the children, but at the same time to child-parent relationships in an environment less suitable for children, transformed for a few hours into a space of joy and freedom. As a newspaper article (in Romanian) wrote on the event, some kids felt so at ease that they thought they were at their parents’ working place, not in prison (also see the photos).

What the games did on this occasion was to open some windows where the doors are normally locked, and nonetheless to open hearts that the prison context has turned to stone. For the most dedicated volunteers, says the diploma the MOVE animators received from the administration of Jilava, and indeed the event was done with a deep personal involvement. For Movement, Games and Sport methodology, this unexplored territory proved to be challenging and full of humanity, for sure a potentiality for the future. (C.V.)