"Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better."

Highlights of a summer in malawi

Conversations with Malawi

Inspector Evan Kataira Chisi

What role does football have in Chichiri Prison?

 

There are three things we are looking to do with Football in prison. One is to maintain their health.  Two, is to promote football.  When they are busy with football, it is one way of maintaining our security inside.  Because, it takes up a lot of their time to watch and play football inside.  The third one, is once these inmates are outside, when they will leave prison, they will join clubs, to maintain their football career.  I can give one example.  We had one prisoner, Haj Saludii, he was a prisoner inside.  He started becoming interested in football inside.  As I am talking now, he is on a big club: Bata Bullets.  He is playing there and he is a good scorer.  We do football inside the prison; it does make a future for the inmates.

 

How can soccer make life better for the inmates?

 

Yea, soccer can make life better for the people.  One, they maintain their strength and physical fitness. Two, they entertain the other prisoners.  When they are inside they feel being lonely.  But at the moment when they watch football, they try to forget, their loneliness.

 

What do inmates do when not playing football?

 

If they don’t attend football, we have some other activities.  Just to mention a few:  they do dramas, they are religious, and they even do other jobs, because our aim these days is to reform them, by imparting knowledge and skills to them. That is, doing carpentry, bricklaying, blacksmith, tailoring, and even now they also learn about computer, because we have some computers inside.

 

What would you say to others who want to donate to the prison?

 

They are most welcome.  What you have done is very appreciable.

On August 9, 2006, Matt Dearing, Chris Dearing, and Justin Pryor met with Aubrey Nankhuni, the manager of SM Galaxy.  We previously donated 15 soccer balls to SM Galaxy to use towards their team development.  They surprised us when they later suggested they donate them to other organizations in need.  We thought it was a great idea. 

One organization they have donated to in the past is Chichiri Prison.  It is a small prison on the outskirts of Blantyre that holds a variety of male inmates. 

SM Galaxy intended to encourage these inmates with a gift of two soccer balls.  We traveled with them to the prison and spoke with the warden and his associates.  They were surprised by the visit, as well as the cameras.  We were unable to enter the prison, but the guards provided us with their personal reflection on the value of sports in this Malawi prison.

Click on photo for Video

Linguistics Professor, Dr. Mchombo discusses SM Galaxy’s work at Chichiri Prison and questions the use of the term “corrections” in referring to modern day prisons.   Click Photo for Video.    2:20 min