Message from the Chair of the EPEA

Dear colleagues,

Dear fellow members of EPEA,

Welcome!

The EPEA Steering Committee is very pleased to welcome you in our midst. 

The formation of a branch is often not a simple matter.

It helps if Prison Education is already nationally organised – in some countries education in prisons is only done by local charities or NGOs. But then you still need to find the professionals that are passionate enough to spend even more time on their work than they already do.  You need to set up an organisation in line with national regulations. You need to find people skilled for all board functionalities.  And, finally, you have to meet EPEA requirements.

This last obstacle is never a problem, since the national branch should aim for the same objectives as the mother organisation. And as you know, we aim to improve Prison Education according to the Recommendations of the Council of Europe [Rec(89)12].

We would like to congratulate the President of the General Assembly Board, Mr Artur Cristóvão, the President of the Executive Board, Mr José Pinto, the President of the Fiscal Board, Mr Alberto Baptista, and, of course, the entire team for establishing the Portuguese branch.

We were especially impressed by the thoroughness of the way it is set up and also by its Constitution.

EPEA is grateful for the formation of new branches for two reasons:

The most important reason is that, on a national level, professionals on many different areas of expertise (be it teachers, governors, researchers or associated services) will have a national platform to exchange knowledge, practices and stimulate growth and quality of Prison Education into the right direction.

Another important reason is that, with a national branch, the EPEA Steering Committee, and therefore all members, will now have a broadly oriented expert contact in Portugal to ask for advice, input and share, for example, project partner search requests.

We are looking forward to a productive, but also friendly collaboration with the new branch and of course with our individual members. For as you may know, EPEA is very much about personal contacts.

We wish all board members good luck with their work in the future and invite them to contact us for any queries they may have.

Thank you for joining us!

Annet Bakker | Chair EPEA

www.epea.org

 

Associação Portuguesa de Educação nas Prisões
Departamento de Educação e Psicologia
Edifício Polo I da Escola de Ciências Humanas e Sociais
Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro
Quinta dos Prados, 5001-801 VILA REAL
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