Grade 12’s and trainee 2’s students undertaking a 5 hours of the total of 25 hours of Servanthood and Leadership Training (SALT) Program, recently visited the Keravat CIS as a requirement that will qualify them to graduate in this 2018 academic year. This program truly helps the students to experience challenges beyond the walls of school by envisioning them to response to the need of times as good Christian and honest citizens of this nation. Drawing from Bosconian hallmark of leadership, we believe that the only way for true leadership is through service.

Listening to and Accompanying the UNFORTUNATE behind bars
By Charles Mahisu Berita (12B Journalism Student)

It is becoming a normal way of life as we all conform to the idea of ‘Who Cares! It’s Not My Business.’ We do things without taking into consideration its consequences.
What could be more painful for some detainees who are serving their terms in prison camp is a feeling of rejection surrounded by loneliness and life without freedom.

On the 12th of May during our visit to the Keravat jail in East New Britain, I was privileged to talk with one of the inmates who is serving the life sentence regarding how life is in prison. He was among sixty of them who were allowed for our first visitation. Fifty two males and eight females were guarded out and assembled in front of us. From his face I could obviously see the pain of separation from his family consuming his heart.

I raised my eyes when he spoke, and I saw him as though I had seen him before. I saw his chin sunk on his breast, the clumsy folds of his coat, his clasped hands, his motionless pose, so curiously suggestive of his having been missing his family.

Time had passed indeed: it had overtaken him and gone ahead. It had left him hopelessly behind bars with a few poor gifts: the iron- grey hair, the heavy fatigue of the tanned face, two scars of bullet wound and a blue-red shoulder strap with barbed wires all around him.

He shook my hand and said in simple Tok-Pisin, “My name is David Jacob, from West New Britain who is convicted of murder, armed robbery and rape, and causing disturbance in the community which I am now being truly regretful. But it is too late for me. I have to accept the reality.

In a very short program conducted accompanied by speeches and presentation of items, the students offered gifts as we shared the hugs, the tears and bittersweet feelings. Representing the detainees Moses Pascoe (Unknown) also serving a life sentence courageously stood up and shared his life experience.

He recalled,” the moment the sentence was read out was a hot and humid day in November 2005. When the court handed down the verdict, I struggled to swallow this new reality, but I had to accept the consequences, and the fact that I was going to spend the rest of his life in jail “.

The days followed were hard. “It wasn’t easy on me,” he said. The painful feeling of leaving away from our families is unbearable. We always live with silent tears.
In his speech, he urged students not to think of a life in a prison. “As students you should be submitted to your parents, your teachers, the authority and God who is our Heavenly Father by putting into practice the value of respect, obedience and love, “he said. Life in prison is very hard and will bring you back to a zero position.

Speaking of the program, Fr. Pankaj (SDB) said, “It’s unique and provides us to bond with our detainees despite our situations.” It operates on the principle that every human, no matter what they have done, should be treated with dignity.

It is a very life changing program for the visiting students. The visitation of student by undertaking the 5 hours of Servanthood and Leadership Training (SALT) Program has left students with an experience and challenge of being good Christian citizen of this nation.