The Fiji Corrections Service is making good use of inmates’ talents in its carpentry workshop at Naboro.
The workshop currently employs 22 inmates from the medium complex at Naboro.
Its officer-in-charge Sergeant-Major Maika Waqanisau said they were only work on orders from their customers.
He said the inmates received $2 a day working at the workshop which would be given to them when they were released.
“We are moving to commercialisation and we hope to expand our service,” Sergeant-Major Waqanisau said.
The inmates produced furniture such as wooden chairs, wardrobes, tables, coffee tables, pot plants stand and other products.
“These are talents the inmates came with and this workshop has enabled them to utilise these talents as part of the Corrections Service’s rehabilitation programme,” he said.
The workshop was established in 1965.
Sergeant-Major Waqanisau said with the inception of the Yellow Ribbon Project inmates have been able to learn and gain knowledge on how best they could utilise their skills in income-generating activities when they returned to their families.
He said most inmates that had gone through the workshop were now making a living through the skills they learned from the workshop.