Vocational Training

Vocational training and capacity building

This Life Cambodia is providing children in prison with skills based training in Motor Mechanics and Electronic Repairs. The education program also includes life skills and personal development, as well as one on one support in a holistic approach to education addressing the stressful prison environment as an education setting. Also through our program, children and their families develop their existing strengths and connections through monthly visits, enabling sustainable change upon release from prison which benefits the community at large.

Vocational training and capacity building of minors and their families expects to achieve the following outcomes:

• Children have better access to educational/training and value education
• Children make goals for after their release; have more options and choices upon release are more able to meet their basic needs and are less likely to reoffend
• Children build self-esteem and self-worth, reduce stress and feel a sense of belonging or family connections
• Families of minors visit monthly

Since November 2010, This Life Beyond Bars conducted a vocational training course for 12 students. The course takes place three days a week and consists of either a motor or electronic course. The vocational training course is accompanied by visitation activities to support the reconnection between families and students as well as personal development courses taught by This Life Cambodia’s social worker, as well as presentations from guest speakers from other local institutions, including gender and equality and health.

An evaluation of the program was conducted in July 2011, with information collected between December 2010 and March 2011 and April and July 2011. During this time, the average attendance rate for the motor course was 94.8 percent; the electronic course was 96.6 percent; and the personal development course was 95.8 percent. Students not only have learned a new skill since November, but also have begun to dream of a positive future because of their newly learned skills.

Students are dedicated to learning and studying the course material. The average grade for students in the motor course was an 80 percent, while the average grade in the electronics course was a 70 percent.

As well as vocational training, students participate in personal development courses. Behaviour and attitude are typically the focus of the personal development courses. The personal development course helps improve the students’ morals and ethics as young adults. One student claimed the skills learned in personal development help him “become a good person in the community.”

Increased student achievement and changes in certain behavioural and attitude criteria, has been accompanied with an increased desire to think about the future, after the children are released from prison. Students recognized that learning a skill would help them in their future. As one student stated, “the community will value me when I am released if I have a skill.”