The offence I committed was drug trafficking.
I mixed with bad company
and ended up taking drugs.
I took drugs until I didn’t have much money left...
so I started to sell them.
In the end, I got caught and ended up here.
The first time I saw my son was in 2019.
When I first carried my newborn son, I was very happy.
It was my first time being a father.
When you carry your own son for the first time, in prison,
you could feel very excited.
Our relationship is not very good.
Because maybe he is still young
and all that's in his mind is just play.
If he gets to play, then he’ll be okay.
Whether he has a father or no father, it doesn’t matter.
I worry that my son will go the same way as me.
Many of these fathers have been absent in the lives of their children
even before they’re in prison.
The families are broken.
They don’t talk to each other.
There’s a lot of conflict,
there’s guilt, there’s anger, there’s resentment.
So we come in to bridge the relationship
between the caregiver, the child and the father.
We help the father make baby steps to reconnect to the child.
New Life Stories is about supporting families impacted by incarceration,
to help them rebuild their lives.
Our main aim is to prevent intergenerational incarceration
and we want them to be able to create new life patterns
for generations to come.
We run a family strengthening programme
that is through-care programme from inside the prison to outside.
So we start with the fathers who are inside the prison.
We engage them to be from absent fathers to present fathers.
“Such a nice, breezy Sunday morning!”
The father said to himself,
while looking out the window.
“I must bring my two lovely children
to cycle at the beach!”
During breakfast with his daughter and son,
he told them his plan.
We get the fathers to write the books.
So the kids can think: “Oh, wow,
my father has written a storybook where I am the character.
And my father has recorded those books too,
so I can hear my father’s voice.”
When we say something through stories,
it stays in the heart of the child.
That’s the reason we use storytelling
to impart values, to impart love
and expressions of love between a father and a child.
When I read the story to my son, I felt,
“Is this real or not?”
I don’t know whether I will be a good father or not.
But I will try.
Now that I will go out soon,
I feel happy and feel a bit worried.
Because when you go out,
there are so many problems you need to face.
For fathers who have just been released from prison
and who do not have any relationship with their children,
my advice is not to give up.
Don’t give up at the first sign of rejection.
Keep reaching out to the children or your child.
They actually would like to have you in their lives.
Sometimes they reject you
because they’re angry and they feel abandoned.
So this is their way of saying, I am angry.
Don’t ever give up until you reconnect your child.
After I’ve been released from here,
I think I will bring my son to cycle.
Then, I will try to spend more time with him,
draw with him and try to understand him more.
Finished!
Can you tell us how this drawing looks like your papa?
Because papa likes to carry me up high.
See, I’m on top!
I will let my son know that
I will try my best to take care of him.
I will become a good father to him.