OPINION: Education the key to freedom

Hoyporhoy La Prensa, Dec 13

ON MONDAY  women prison inmates dressed in toga and mortar, received their university degrees in a Beautiful graduation ceremony held at the Auditorium of the University of Panama.

The academic institution located an annex within the Women’s Rehabilitation Center to offer university education to those deprived of liberty, who for a myriad of reasons, did not have the opportunity to acquire their tertiary education.

The program launched by the Ministry of Government, is the first in Central America and is only comparable in the region with a similar one that exists in Argentina, and which is run by the University of Buenos Aires.

The initiative demonstrates that social reintegration is opossible and feasible. The existence of an offer to prisoners is the best way to  reduce m leisure that fuels and encourages greater delinquency in penitentiary centers.

The small ceremony was loaded with much symbolism, but above all made tangible the message that education is the key that frees humans from all prisons.