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Kentucky Prison inmates gospel choir sing and dance after receiving some goodies from Zaoga Church parishioners in Budiriro 5, Harare yesterday. — Picture by Innocent Makawa

Tendai Rupapa Senior Reporter
Prisoners must not be shunned and communities must help re-integrate them into society, a cleric has said. Zaoga Budiriro district pastor Harrison Hungwe made the remarks after the church donated goodies worth US$2 000 to Kentucky Prison choir, the Renewed Peace Gospel Singers, in Harare’s Budiriro suburb yesterday.

The donation included foodstuffs, toiletries and clothing and the Renewed Peace Gospel Singers performed at the event in Budiriro.
Pastor Hungwe said, “Prisoners and ex-prisoners are seen as ‘black sheep’ in society and they usually face discrimination, stigma and unemployment as they make their way back to society.

“Most people are hesitant to accept, employ or associate with ex-convicts, making it difficult for them to re-integrate back into society.
“Therefore, churches have a bigger role to play in educating the society on how best convicts and ex-convicts can be helped. What we did today was to show them love while we are being guided by Matthew 25v36,” he said.

One of the songs the prisoners sang was “Fambai neni tenzi nyangwe ndakatadza”, which appeals to God to forgive and accept them as sinners.

The leader of Budiriro Zaoga intercession group, Evangelist Charity Munzara sourced the donation. Evangelist Munzara lauded Government for increasingly rehabilitating offenders through training to run self-help projects. Some of the ex-convicts gave their testimonies, with one of them saying he was now a deacon in a church and another was a lay evangelist.

One of them, who identified himself as Nyathi, said: “I have done everything bad from armed robbery, womanising, drug abuse, fighting people and lots of bad things. I regret doing that, but I will never regret the day I decided to be a born-again Christian.”

Reverend Esnath Mambondo from the Prisons Ministry thanked Zaoga for the donation.