Education is basically the SOUL of a community that is shared and passed from one generation to another. If someone is going down the wrong path it is education that will and should turn them around. In her book Education for the SOUL Behind the Prison Walls , the Hon. D. Neletha Butterfield, M.B.E., J.P. highlights herstory, involvement, encouragement, teachings and experience in educating the inmates of the correctional facilities in Bermuda - The Senior Training School, The Female Prison (now Co-Ed Correctional Facility, Prison Farm and Casemates Prison (now Westgate Correctional Facility) from computer studies to African education studies and from mathematics and reading to the G.E.D. programme (high school diploma). She ventured on this prison educational journey in 1984 on the request of Mr. Edwin C. Wilson, first Educational Officer with Her Majesty’s Prison, as well as a former Commissioner of Prisons. Mr. Wilson in his wisdom contacted her and asked if she can assist in teaching at the prison facilities with her G.E.D. and computer programmes. She accepted and taught for approximately 20 years successfully assisting one hundred and fifty inmates in receiving their GED (high school diplomas) and over three hundred inmates in receiving basic educational skills and computer training. As the founder of the General Education Development (GED) programme, the computer programme and the African studies programme in the correctional facilities, in 1985 Butterfield held the first graduation ceremony in the prisons and through her vision, the educational programmes and graduation ceremony continues to flourish today.In this book you will read appreciation messages, poems and letters from inmates, graduation programmes, letters of congratulations and thanks from the legislature and the community, newspaper articles and more on her role as the co-founder of Prison Fellowship, Chairman of the Treatment of Offenders Board and her account of an instructors’ day in the prison. She currently volunteers her educational services as she believes giving back is the key to her success behind the prison walls. Prison itself is a tremendous education in the need for patience and perseverance. It is above all a test of one’s commitment.
Nelson Mandela
