Sports & Recreation

In previous years, prisons were viewed as institutions that emphasized harsh punishment and personal deprivation over inmates’ rehabilitation. Consequently, play, leisure and sports programs were discouraged.  In recent years this trend has changed.  Fr. Grol’s Welfare Project encourages the inmates to participate in recreation activities as a means of alleviating the monotony of the prison life and as a safety valve to release built-up emotions and tensions.  Recreation raises inmates’ morale reduces boredom and provides a proper avenue for blowing off pent-up frustrations.

The Project provides sport facilities for both indoor and outdoor games.  Some of these facilities include footballs, volleyballs, volleyball nets, chess games, ludo games, draft, ajua, scrabble, snake & ladders, cards and many others.

We also provide games uniforms to teams in the prisons with the assistance of well-wishers.

In the prisons we encounter inmates who have exclusive talents such as guitar playing and drawing, to these inmates we give guitars and drawing materials besides encouraging them to continue nurturing their talents.

Besides the possibility of providing a diversion or escape from the monotony of prison life, sports and recreation serves as a valuable treatment for individual rehabilitation, provide the prisoners with the opportunity to experience the pleasure associated with the non-prison life and increase inmates’ morale by providing healthy activity that stimulates positive attitudes among them.  Sports programs can reduce medical expenses by improving the health of inmates and foster respect and good relationship between the inmates and the warders when they play together.