37 remand inmates baptised at Port-of-Spain Prison

Thir­ty-sev­en re­mand­ed in­mates at the Port-of-Spain Prison have been bap­tised in a re­li­gious cer­e­mo­ny aimed at sup­port­ing their spir­i­tu­al de­vel­op­ment and per­son­al re­flec­tion.

The cer­e­mo­ny was held on Tues­day at the prison's Re­mand Air-Yard and was fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tion The Way of Ho­li­ness.

Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Elvin Scant­er­bury at­tend­ed the cer­e­mo­ny, along with Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons R. Dass, Su­per­in­ten­dent of Pris­ons S. James and As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Pris­ons N. Ramjits­ingh.

The bap­tism formed part of The Way of Ho­li­ness' on­go­ing re­li­gious min­istry with­in the prison sys­tem.

Ahead of the cer­e­mo­ny, the or­gan­i­sa­tion's head, Pas­tor Wilma Kel­ly, in­cor­po­rat­ed teach­ings on bap­tism in­to its reg­u­lar week­ly re­li­gious ses­sions, pro­vid­ing par­tic­i­pants with spir­i­tu­al guid­ance and prepa­ra­tion.

The bap­tism was con­duct­ed by Pas­tors Ce­cil Au­gus­tus and An­tho­ny Wor­rell, with Ru­by West and Sybil Ram­lal as­sist­ing with the co­or­di­na­tion and or­gan­i­sa­tion of the event.

In a state­ment, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice said the ini­tia­tive demon­strat­ed the con­tri­bu­tion of faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions in pro­vid­ing spir­i­tu­al guid­ance and sup­port to per­sons in cus­tody.

The Ser­vice said it recog­nised the im­por­tance of free­dom of wor­ship and the role re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions play in sup­port­ing the spir­i­tu­al and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment of in­mates.

It added that, through col­lab­o­ra­tion with faith-based part­ners, it re­mained com­mit­ted to fa­cil­i­tat­ing ap­pro­pri­ate re­li­gious ac­tiv­i­ties with­in the cor­rec­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment, con­sis­tent with its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for the wel­fare and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of per­sons in cus­tody.