Improving the Health of Prisoners
Prison populations across Zimbabwe face prejudice, overcrowding, poor nutrition, and lack of essential medication, all barriers to prisoners fully realising their health rights. Substandard conditions contribute to widespread general ill-health, as well as the spread of communicable diseases, including hepatitis, Tuberculous, and HIV, with prisoners in Zimbabwe twice as likely to have HIV and AIDS than the general population
For those living with HIV in particular, stigma and limited support structures prevent many from managing their condition effectively. Since 1982, VSO has worked to improve prisoner access to healthcare and services, and to help prisoners transition to life after incarceration through the provision of livelihood and skills training.
In collaboration with the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service, local government departments, and partner NGOs, VSO supports prisoner wellbeing and access to health services, with a particular focus on responding to high rates of HIV infection and AIDS amongst prison populations. To do this, they train inmates as volunteer peer educators, who provide essential information, advice, and psychosocial support to fellow prisoners and encourage them to get tested and manage their condition effectively.
Volunteer peer educators also work within prisons to raise awareness of communicable diseases and provide essential advice on how to stop them spreading, teaching their peers about the importance of good hygiene and nutrition. They share information on sexual and reproductive health (SRH), encouraging their peers to get tested and explaining the importance of adhering to antiretroviral therapy (ART) for those with HIV. For those who are ill but have been discharged from the prison hospital, volunteers provide cell-based care, including giving bed baths, feeding, collecting rations, administering medication, and counselling.
Through decades of experience, VSO found that inmates more readily embrace SRH information when it comes from volunteer peer educators, because these are their fellow inmates and peers. To give one example, in Chikurubi Maximum Prison, ART adherence rates doubled from 50% to 100% after the introduction of the peer support scheme. Across VSO’s prisons work, over 10,000 inmates now have access to health services, and in one prison, deaths reduced by 84% because of interventions.
Equally important as the advice shared by volunteers is the emotional and psychosocial support they provide. In lieu of the family-, friend- and community-based structures that prisoners may have had on the outside, groups provide a much-needed source of comfort and help during challenging times for those living with HIV. Volunteer peer educators help people to come to terms with having the disease, encouraging them to speak out and helping them to understand that they can manage their condition. VSO volunteers’ work with prisoners does not stop when they leave prison. Volunteers help inmates develop essential livelihood skills and provide training in vocational trades, such as welding, panel beating, tailoring, and hairdressing. There is also ongoing peer support for ex-offenders, with voluntary community-based groups of ex-offenders providing a space for ongoing peer support, helping people to access available health services and supporting people with HIV to live positive and full lives.
