HIV Awareness raising in prisons and communities

As you perhaps know, Siam-Care doesn't meet most prisoners many times. We usually train the inmates 3 or 4 times, offer counseling, and then start training a new group of people. But recently, this has slightly changed. We have been asked by prison staff to spend extra time with young inmates who have been released and arrested again several times.

Many of the youngsters in prison, are from a poor background. Most of them ended up in prison because the were caught selling drugs. Apparantly, some of them don't just learn their lesson by spending a couple months in prison, as quite a lot of youngsters who currently are in prison, have been there before. After being released, they hang out with their old friends again and often start making the same mistakes again: either selling drugs or stealing. And then they get arrested again, until they are released again and the story starts again. 

During the last couple of months, Siam-Care has been giving extra attention to teenagers who have been in prison 2 or more times. We have been spending time with them, talking about their future and about their dreams: where do they see themselves in 10 years from now? It was touching to see, that most of them are not dreaming of a big carreer and a lot of money, but simply of a house, a family and a happy life. Of course we cannot change them in 3 or 4 sessions. But what we can do, is listen to their stories and remind them of their dreams. They are still young and most of them have been sentenced to 'only' a few months. Once their become adults, and keep on making the same mistakes, the sentences will be much higher and they might actually ruin their own lives. Siam-Care tries to convince them of the fact that they can change, if they really want to. They just have to make good decisions.

Thank you for allowing us to give love and attention to young people, of which many have not received much love and attention from their parents. If they know their parents at all.