Your abandonment is absolute.
Here your health is undermined.
It’s as though, on entering the prison,
you’ve ceased being a person.
Here we experience many needs.
And an inmate is always treated very roughly.
It’s where you really reach rock bottom
MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA
It’s paradoxical: amid the overcrowding
in these prisons, there’s a lot of loneliness.
I’ve been here almost two years and my family can’t come because they live far away.
Despite the fact that we are here,
that I’m imprisoned here, I’m not a bad person.
Like any other human being, I made a mistake.
Here we don’t have access to a doctor
or to medicines,
and I have a terminal illness.
We are sick and alone.
So it’s very important that people come to visit us,
that they realize what our situation here is like.
Prisoners in Colombia are “stigmatized”:
no one is going to employ them.
What does this lead to?
That they see themselves as rejected by society.
And on seeing that they are rejected, they fall back into delinquency, into violence.
We come here every 8 days
to spend the morning offering medical assistance.
We come to look after the health of these people
who have no one to help them.
Anything helps:
bringing toothpaste, toilet paper,
items for hygiene, medicine,
a doctor who gives his time to help out.
The talks they give,
and the classes have been very helpful.
A workshop offers
practical job training so that
an inmate will leave here having learned a manual skill.
We can see the changes.
The inmates are very receptive to the external help offered.
At times one can be enclosed here in a world
that is very hostile,
very dark.
With the help of the Caminos Foundation
one recovers new light,
the hope that one can once again go forward.
This helps us
to see people in society in a different way
and we feel part of our society once again.
—¡John Éder!
—¡John! —¡John Éder!
John Éder, here is your medicine, follow all the instructions
carefully, so that
you can get better again.
It’s very hard when those you love and those closest to you fail to assist you.
You feel that everyone has abandoned you,
that no one needs you.
Letters began arriving at the parish
and we needed to answer them.
When we began answering them, one thing became clear:
the prisoners needed not only material help but also spiritual help.
A 13 year old girl knew I was in jail and she wrote me.
It was a great joy to see that a person I didn’t know was trying to help me.
Why did she write me? I don’t know.
She wrote that I shouldn’t get into arguments, that everything would turn out well.
“You are a good fellow. I know what you are going through.
Don’t give up hope. We are waiting for you when you’re free once again.”
When I began visiting prisons,
when I started carrying out my pastoral work there,
I realized that we are all equal,
that they are people like myself, like my parishioners.
Since we go from cell to cell we need people to help us,
and there, for the first time, they come face to face with this situation.
I wouldn’t say that this gives you satisfaction . . . no,
but when you see a person changing, you are joyful,
and joy is a higher expression than just satisfaction.
Since 2015,
we have been carrying out here with the Narval Cultural Center
a social work in the Bucaramanga women’s prison.
What does Dr. Clara’s group do?
It gives them guidelines for raising children,
a school on how to be a parent for women who have never learned this;
they learn how to be mothers here.
They strengthen the maternal and affective bonds
of all the inmates.
I’ve learned to love my children more,
to value them,
to truly love them.
While being here,
I continue being a mother.
I’ve come to realize how much I love my children.
I really need them.
It’s horrible, it’s something...
that no one can begin to imagine.
The Church teaches us to visit the imprisoned,
since only mercy can change hearts,
and help a person to be reinserted in society.
We made a mistake, which we are making amends for,
and we want to return to society and society to return to us.
The judge once told me that I wasn’t fit for society, and that no one wanted me,
but on seeing other people trying to help me
and showing concern for me, I see it differently.
If they show us love, that is what we are going to show others out on the street.
Especially the volunteers from Caminos
I call them my guardian angels.
In the imprisoned, in those in jail
the suffering Christ is present.
As they are God’s children and I am a daughter of God, this makes us brothers and sisters,
and that’s how we have to look at them.
We don’t feel alone and this brings a lot of joy.
I speak about mercy.
I speak about loving one another wholeheartedly, with charity.
And you become holy and help others to be holy
because you will be able to
smooth over every friction, to understand and forgive.