Dr. Mario Ottoboni | Brazil

A Tribute to the Father of the APAC Prison Methodology

By Dan Van Ness

We’re saddened by the recent death of Dr. Mario Ottoboni, who made significant contributions in the area of restorative justice through the creation of the APAC Methodology. Dr. Ottoboni was an inspiration to many. He leaves a Christ-filled legacy of hope, healing, and redemption for our imprisoned brothers and sisters. His loss will be greatly felt throughout the Prison Fellowship International family. Let us celebrate his life and thank God for his testimony of love and visionary leadership.

Nearly 30 years ago, I visited the Humaita Prison in São José dos Campos, a leading industrial city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, as part of a research team led by Dave Van Patten, Prison Fellowship International’s current chief operations office. Recently, I flipped through the pages of the report our team produced after that trip. And I remembered the powerful impact the trip had on the team. We witnessed the revolutionary prison methodology emerging there, the Association to Aid and Protect Prisoners (APAC), created by the remarkable man, Dr. Mário Ottoboni, who was the peaceful presence at the center of it all. APAC was named after the organization Dr. Ottoboni and other Christian leaders had created to do this work.

The research team and I were sent to Brazil by an American businessman who had visited the prison several months earlier.

“This is a prison run by and for God,” he said. “What makes it work? And could it be replicated in the United States?” he wondered.

Based on what we saw, we confirmed that it produced remarkable transformations in prisoners, but it had not grown in a petri dish with carefully constructed purpose statements, strategic analyses, and logic models. Dr. Ottoboni and his leadership team had asked prisoners what they needed and listened to their responses.

The APAC methodology emerged organically, over time, in that small prison. Certain features were considered essential, like the absence of prison guards and any other paid staff. But those were manifestations—not building blocks—of the methodology. When we asked what core principle made it work, the consistent answer Dr. Ottoboni gave was, “Love.”

When we asked, “How many paid staff members do you have,” the answer was, “There are no paid staff. The prison is run entirely by community volunteers and by the prisoners themselves. We do not accept payment, so when prisoners ask why we are here, they will believe us when we tell them we love them.”

To Dr. Ottoboni, love was not sentimental, or easy. He meant the costly, self-giving, take-up-your-cross, agape love Jesus demonstrated and demanded of his followers. It was exhibited every time a community volunteer spent the night at the prison rather than at home. This kind of love persisted despite the strong opposition to the APAC methodology mounted by police and corrections personnel who found themselves denied bribes customarily paid by prisoners and their families to provide basic services. This love even endured the martyrdom of Dr. Franz de Castro Holzwarth, a close friend of Dr. Ottoboni’s. Dr. Holzwarth was one of the early APAC leaders, who successfully negotiated the end of a prisoner uprising and hostage-taking in a nearby city. As he and the prisoners emerged from that prison with upraised hands, Dr. Franz de Castro and the prisoner leaders were killed in a hail of police gunfire.

We next asked, “Why do prisoners help you run the prison?” Dr. Ottoboni explained, “They need to know we trust them because, one day, they will be released into the community and will need to be worthy of trust by then. We love them. If they make a mistake, we tell them they can try again.”

“When prisoners arrive, we welcome them to their new home. We take off their steel handcuffs and put on handcuffs of love. Many prisoners volunteer for the program thinking they will escape—but few make the attempt. Those who do escape usually return in a few days. Why is the prison so clear? Because this is the prisoners’ home and they want to live in beautiful surroundings. This is how they love themselves, each other, and visitors like you.”

In discussing the cause of crime, Dr. Ottoboni stated, “Our prison psychiatrist says, ‘Crime is the violent and tragic refusal to love.’ We are born out of love and we are born to love. But love must be learned, just like speaking and writing. The place to learn how to love is the home. But sometimes our families fail us and when that happens, the result can be crime. The solution to crime is to teach prisoners to love. That is the purpose of APAC. We create an environment in which they learn to love themselves, each other, and the communities they live in. As we see them grow, we give them responsibilities to show we trust them and to prove we are right to trust them. Once men have been loved and have learned to love they will not go back to crime.”

Dr. Ottoboni’s love for prisoners around the world caused him to generously give the APAC methodology to anyone willing to use it, including the next generation of prison ministry leaders, led by Valdeci Ferreira, executive director of Prison Fellowship Brazil. Because of that, Dr. Ottoboni’s legacy continues.

Shortly before our research team returned to the United States, one of our members asked Dr. Ottoboni, “After you die, what is the first thing God will say to you?” Dr. Ottoboni laughed and said, “God will say, ‘You never thought you would arrive here, but it’s no mistake. Here you are and I love you.’”

Dan’s Story

There are few others whose life and service have had a greater impact on Prison Fellowship International and subsequently, thousands of prisoners, ex-prisoners, victims and their families than Daniel Van Ness. Dan served with Prison Fellowship International for more than 20 years, and before that worked for Prison Fellowship USA for 12 years. As founder of Prison Fellowship International’s Centre for Justice & Reconciliation, Dan led the design of the Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace®, our victim-offender awareness program. He also led a coalition of NGOs that drafted and successfully lobbied for adoption by the United Nations the Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programs in Criminal Matters. His vital contributions in the areas of biblical and restorative justice set the foundation and framework for how many countries around the world approach alternative methods to crime and punishment. Here, Dan offers a reflection on his life’s work.

The Gift of Service

By Daniel W. Van Ness

We stood from our Saturday afternoon meeting with Father Marwan and Joelle. We’d spent the past two hours reviewing their financial and program reports, and discussing our findings. Father Marwan Ghanem is the chairman of the board of Prison Fellowship Lebanon and Joelle is the program coordinator for the pilot test of Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace NEW LEAF. It was clear the program was doing well.

We were especially encouraged by what we learned in the interviews with program facilitators, prisoners, and correctional authorities. Father Marwan described the prisoner experience as a “small earthquake”—a paradigm shift in their sense of self. The prisoners told us when they started Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace NEW LEAF they believed they were victims of society, and they served time in prison because of poverty, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice. They resented—often with good reason—their treatment in prison. They were angry with their families for rejecting them, wanted revenge on those who testified against them, and fully expected to resume their criminal careers on release, because the community would deny them legitimate alternatives.

Any harm their crimes caused society, they believed, was minor and abstract when compared to the punitive response from the criminal justice system.

Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace NEW LEAF changed their perspectives. The prisoners told us they now understood that when they committed crimes—whatever their justification—they created real, tangible victims for whom the ripple effects of those crimes produced profound and long-lasting consequences.

Watching videos of victims talking about their experiences, and having the opportunity to listen to a victim who visited them in prison, gave them lots to discuss during the eight two-hour sessions. Learning in Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace NEW LEAF is by discovery during conversation. The prisoners sit in a circle with two volunteer co-facilitators, one of whom introduces a topic, asks an open-ended question, and hands a small object called a talking piece to the person on their left. The others in the circle listen to the person holding the talking piece, without interrupting. When finished, the speaker hands the talking piece to the person to their left and it is that person’s turn to speak.

As the conversation moves around the circle, the prisoners tell stories, give opinions and counter-opinions, and reflect on what they hear. Through the rhythm of listening, speaking, and listening again, the prisoners gain insight, and over the eight weeks experience a change in perspective.

It was clear the transformation empowered prisoners. Initially, they resisted taking responsibility for what they had done to their victims and the harm that resulted. But as they listened to the victims’ stories, they realized their true offense was not against society, but against their particular victims whose lives were changed in large and small ways by the crime. As the prisoners accepted this, they discovered they had agency—the power to change. They were no longer merely powerless victims of hostile society. Several prisoners spontaneously telephoned their victims to apologize (we do not encourage that, since victims may not be prepared to hear from their offenders).

They also began behaving differently in prison. The colonel, who runs the overcrowded prison we visited, told us it was calmer and easier to run in the four months since Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace NEW LEAF had started. It had a disproportionate effect because prisoners taking the course shared what they learned with other prisoners. Without advertising, there was now a course waiting list of 100 prisoners.

Course graduates told us they now dealt with conflict in the prison differently. When an issue arose between Shiite and Sunni militants that was clearly leading to violence, prisoners in the Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace NEW LEAF program intervened and helped them resolve the issue peacefully. They were becoming peacemakers rather than troublemakers.

So, I felt good that Saturday night as our meeting ended. It had been a long week. Before coming to Lebanon, we visited our other Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace NEW LEAF pilot project in Nigeria, which demonstrated similar results. Now, after long days of meetings, overnight flights, and hard work, it was just hours before my pre-dawn departure to catch my flight home.

It would be my last flight as an employee of Prison Fellowship. After 20 years with Prison Fellowship International, and another 12 before that with Prison Fellowship USA, my wife Brenda and I decided it was time to begin the next phase of our lives. Two days after I returned home, we would close on the purchase of a retirement home, built on a single level with wide doors and hallways. Two years ago I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. We wanted to be prepared for whatever the future will bring.

As we stood to go, Father Marwan turned to me and asked, “Would you like to come to Mass at my parish church? I leave in 20 minutes. It will last an hour, so you will be back here in time for dinner.”

I hesitated. I expected to feel too tired to do anything but rest. To my surprise, I felt invigorated and curious; this would be an opportunity to see my friend in his vocation as parish priest.

“Yes, I’d like to go,” I said.

A few minutes later we were driving to the outskirts of Zahle, a Christian city in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon. Just over the mountains—a one-hour drive away—was Damascus.

Father Marwan is a Maronite Catholic priest. The roots of the Maronite Mass trace to Antioch, where disciples were first called Christians1. According to tradition, the church in Antioch was founded by the Apostle Peter when he fled Jerusalem during the persecution that arose from the martyrdom of James. He served as its first bishop before going to Rome. The Maronites have the same creeds and sacraments as Roman Catholics, and recognize the Pope as the human leader of the church. Nevertheless, they have their own liturgy, theology, spirituality and canon law.
Most of the Mass is sung or said in formal Arabic, although portions are in Aramaic—the language Jesus spoke. It is strongly Trinitarian with an emphasis on Jesus as true God and true man. It also retains aspects of Old Testament liturgy.

We entered Saint Elias Church-Wadi Al Arayesh by a side door and could hear the service had started. The congregation, led by several strong female voices, sang hymns in anticipation of the start of the Mass. As Father Marwan prepared the Host and began vesting in a room near the altar, he asked someone to escort me down a few steps into the church’s front rows.

 

 

There were perhaps 150 people in a building that could hold 500 or so. They were seated when I entered, and we stood and sat at the prescribed times throughout the service. The liturgy was sung—no words were spoken during the entire service—without instrumental accompaniment.

The roughhewn stone building was well lit, and the vaulted ceiling stretched high. In the front, above the altar, hung a large painting of the prophet Elijah (Saint Elias), standing on Mount Carmel next to the divinely blazing sacrifice.

Father Marwan emerged from the anteroom and walked to the altar, wearing a long brocade robe. He was just as much a priest this morning in his black shirt and white collar when we visited the prisoners, but now it was evening and he was dressed to lead us in the sacrament of the Mass. Two kinds of dress; two forms of worship; one God.
The service, so far, consisted entirely of congregational singing. With Father Marwan present, it transitioned to a dialogue between the priest and the people—a kind of call-and-response as he sang and the congregation answered. But it was bigger than that. There were times when he turned and we all faced the Holy Table and the Mass became another form of dialogue, for more than priest and congregation were present.

The Arabic and Aramaic words were unintelligible to me. I kept waiting for something familiar to my North American Anglican ears, but it never came. And because I didn’t know the order of service, I rarely knew where we were in the Mass. Even the visual clues were unfamiliar prompts. At one point Father Marwan held up an icon of Mary for the congregation to venerate. Later, he raised the cup and carefully tilted it in four directions. Yet in the unfamiliarity, one thing was apparent: God was present. I felt his presence from the moment I entered the church. He filled the place—worshipped by the congregation and received by the people during communion.

My senses were fully engaged. I saw the church’s beauty, heard the unison singing, and smelled the incense offered repeatedly during the service. And over the next hour, my mind was free to reflect.

I visited over 50 countries during my three decades with Prison Fellowship, exploring the promise of restorative justice in response to crime. My trips were rarely as glamorous as they sounded to my friends back home. In many instances, the drives from and to the foreign airports were the most I saw of the country. My memories are of meeting rooms, prisons or hotels, and long hours spent getting the most out of my brief visit. Jet lag, uncomfortable airline seats, flight cancellations, unfamiliar food, and mounting fatigue are the price we pay for the amazing ability to travel by air to distant parts of the world.

In most countries, I was unable to communicate without an interpreter. Sometimes this created confusion, and I would discover important matters on the agenda I was unprepared for. But this also had its advantages: traveling in a car full of people chatting happily in a language I didn’t understand was a perfect context for prayer and meditation.

In every place, I met people who had heard Jesus’s call to visit him in prison. Some were clearly saints, holy conduits of God’s love to prisoners. All of us were sinners, dependent on grace.

As I reflected, my heart softened. What a gift it had all been. My work allowed me to explore the very character of God as we sought to find new solutions to the problem of crime, every society’s chronic challenge. Repeatedly I witnessed God’s redemptive justice—the foundation of his throne (Ps 89:14)—bring hope and wholeness to individuals, communities, and nations. My companions were men and women from all Christian denominations and traditions, united in offering their lives in service to Jesus the prisoner and King. Work is worship; justice restores; we are one Body. Many times—as recently as that morning—I saw this produce small earthquakes in the lives of the prisoners and victims to whom it is offered.

An overwhelming sense of gratitude washed over me. The Mass had become a benediction to a lifetime of work. Sung in an unfamiliar tongue, in an unfamiliar place, by people I did not know, it was a personal message from the One I had sought to serve. He takes delight in all the forms of his people’s worship, including my own, all-too-often faltering, attempts to do my work over three decades.

As the service concluded and the people left for their homes, I knelt to pray.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

Was it possible to feel more grateful? I couldn’t imagine how. The tedium and travails of my working life—and the challenges I would face in the future—were nothing compared to this gift. Any foolish expectations that I should be repaid or rewarded were fully satisfied.

“You don’t owe me a thing,” I concluded, as I rose. “I am in your debt.”

I walked with Father Marwan to his car, and we rode back to my guesthouse. I packed and prepared to rise at 4:00 the next morning to catch my flight home.

Thank you. It was all pure gift. Thank you.

 

Learn more about restorative justice and Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace®

[1] The following is drawn from “The Story of the Maronite Catholics” found at http://maronitemonks.org/wp/story-maronite-catholics/

DÉO | Rwanda

Prison was the last place Pastor Déo Gashagaza wanted to visit. Behind its walls roamed those responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, individuals who killed 45 of his Tutsi family members and who still wanted to kill him.

“I heard God’s voice say, ‘Go into prison,’” Pastor Déo said. “I told God, ‘I can’t go into the prisons unless you give me a love for the genocide prisoners.’”

One year after the massacre of nearly 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days, Pastor Déo was the first to enter the prisons and minister to his offenders.

Inside, he was greeted with skepticism and hostility. “A minister looked me in the eye and asked me if I was crazy,” Pastor Déo said. “The prisoners said, ‘Oh! How is a guy like this still alive? Why did he not die? Kill him now!’ One said, ‘Please, let him finish his preaching. Kill him after.’ Inside my heart, I remember the quiet prayer I said: ‘God, you sent me here. Please protect me.’”

Pastor Déo preached from Isaiah 61:1:

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.”

As he spoke, many prisoners wept and rose to protect him. “We can’t kill him,” they said, initiating reconciliation and something even more surprising: friendship.

By 2001, Rwanda’s 14 jails still overflowed with 125,000 genocide prisoners awaiting trial. Even with a fully functioning legal system, which had largely been wiped out during the genocide, the backlog of cases was estimated to take hundreds of years. The government turned to gacaca, an ancient form of justice where trusted community elders conduct open-air hearings and, with the offenders and the community, decide on a punishment. Unlike the Western justice system, gacaca encourages confession to determine sentencing, which could include additional prison time, community service or reconciliation programs in the communities where they committed crimes.

In 2002, in preparation for the gacaca courts, Pastor Déo led an 80-person team to launch the Umuvumu Tree Project, a modified version of Prison Fellowship International’s Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®, an in-prison program bringing together crime victims and unrelated offenders to explore restitution and healing. After a successful launch, he trained facilitators to implement the program in all of Rwanda’s prisons.

Between 2002 and 2011, 42,000 prisoners and 10,000 community members participated in the program. At first, only 5,000 prisoners admitted their crimes, despite knowing a confession could lead to a lighter sentence—freedom, even. But as the prisoners digested the program’s concepts of responsibility, forgiveness and reconciliation, they began explaining these ideas to their cellmates.

After less than six months, the number of prisoner confessions rose to 32,000. Not only did the project teach healthy, biblical living and bridge victim-offender relationships, it also aided government investigations, as repentant prisoners began revealing where they abandoned their victims.

The survivors began to take notice. “You are doing so much for the prisoners,” they said, “but nothing for us.”

As Pastor Déo and Prison Fellowship Rwanda expanded their work outside the prisons in response to victim requests, the country’s healing spread rapidly. In less than a year of working with survivors, many were willing to forgive and began asking for the complete pardon of some of their offenders.

Prison Fellowship Rwanda has expanded its restoration efforts by implementing Prison Fellowship International’s child sponsorship program, The Child’s Journey®, and in-prison Bible course, The Prisoner’s Journey®.

Now, decades after the genocide, Rwanda continues to heal. Thanks to God and willing servants like Pastor Déo, Rwandans have true hope.

“Prison Fellowship was, for me, my journey of healing,” said Pastor Déo. “During all this time serving in prison, I was totally healed.”

ELINA | Rwanda

“I Decided to Forgive” 

Elina is a survivor. She escaped death during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, but many of her family members did not. The emotional pain was so great that prison was the last place she wanted to visit—she couldn’t envision herself in the presence of those responsible for massacring her family.

More than 20 years later, the country is still healing from this national trauma. Prison Fellowship Rwanda has been instrumental in this process, by bringing together victims and prisoners to explore ways to make restitution, heal, and forgive through the Umuvumu Tree Project, a modified version of Prison Fellowship International’s restorative justice program, the Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace. And now, they continue healing and transformation throughout the prisons through The Prisoner’s Journey evangelism and discipleship program, which invites prisoners to know and accept Jesus as their Savior.

Elina made a bold and brave move to become a trained course facilitator for this The Prisoner’s Journey. Prison Fellowship Rwanda trained her on topics of Bible studies, psychological healing, and forgiveness. This gave Elina the tools she needed to forgive, and bring healing to others.

“I have decided to forgive [the genocide prisoners] through ministering to them,” Elina says.

For over a year, Elina has volunteered every Thursday in prison, facilitating The Prisoner’s Journey  eight week study through the Gospel of Mark.

“I am very glad that prisoners who have followed these courses are discovering a relationship with Christ and coming to know themselves and their sins. They repent and proceed to the forgiveness process, during which they are helped to meet the families of victims and ask for forgiveness. This leads to unity, reconciliation, and peaceful coexistence.”

Help others around the world experience Christ’s forgiveness. 

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EDISON | Colombia

“God Changed My Life” 

Edison served a year in prison, and suffered extreme cruelty from fellow inmates. But the worst for him was not seeing his three-year-old daughter and having to tell her during every phone call that he wasn’t coming home yet. Edison participated in both The Prisoner’s Journey evangelism and discipleship program, which invited him to accept Jesus as his Savior. He also enrolled in the follow up restorative justice program, Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace, where he learned to know God better and to forgive.

“I identified with Jesus as I was sentenced to prison being innocent. God used these to programs to change my life.”

Edison is grateful the Lord saved and forgave him. He has also learned to forgive as he learns more about God.

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“As God forgave me, that is the least I can do, forgive and ask for forgiveness.”

Edison has been found innocent and released. He has a job and lives for the Lord, and shares his love for God with his daughter.

Help other prisoners hear of Christ’s forgiveness for the first time.

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SAM | Australia

“I am a Person Who has Worth”

The Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace helps victims heal from the harm caused by crime, and helps offenders claim responsibility for their acts, and to seek forgiveness and reconciliation. Sam was one of the original group of prisoners in Australia to participate in the pilot Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace in 2008. Three years later, he shared his story:

“When another prisoner suggested I think about being part of the Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace, I reluctantly came aboard with a bucket load of trepidation.

“I was nervous the first morning, shaking hands with a group of people who were smiling and looking like they were actually pleased to see me.

“I’d always thought that victims of crime should carry a blind hatred—as I did to those who wounded, betrayed, and stole from me. That’s a half century of anger, resentment and loathing built up layer, by layer.

“While I was no longer obsessed with feelings of hatred, I feared that my victims hold, and will continue to hold, similar contempt for me. That is another burden I had laden them with through my selfishness, arrogance, and lovelessness—and they do not deserve to have thoughts of hatred burning inside of them for decades.

“I long for the day when they will encounter the Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace so that they may begin the immensely difficult task of being healed through love, compassion, and forgiveness, and so they may live useful, happy, and productive lives.

“At the conclusion of one of our sessions, I received a shock—one of the victims hugged me! It was the most amazing spontaneous action and I deeply felt her pain, and even more, I felt her deep compassion and understanding of my profound sorrow. I felt loved.

“This program has been a wonderful opportunity for both the perpetrators of crime and the victims of crime to look into each other’s souls and hearts and discover very little difference between us.

“Forgiveness slowly grows from compassion, nurtured by love. Repentance is firstly fully owning and admitting what happened in the past so we can accept responsibility for our future behaviors. We can only know total freedom when we have known truth.

“I am extremely proud and honored to have been a member of the first group in an Australian prison, ‘The Noble Six.’ Personally, I feel more humble than noble as I’m sure this has planted a seed which will grow into a lush, evergreen tree. I feel bonded in a wonderful spirit of hope for our collected futures.

“I am honored to have met and been accepted by what I might call ‘The Phenomenal Five’ who despite my faults and grievous history, have seen that I am a person who has some worth and who can be found again—even though I was truly lost.

“May the Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace and all who rest under it, grow and prosper.”

Help prisoners like Sam make things right.

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Visit our Centre for Justice & Reconciliation

Story credit: Martin Howard, Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace, Queensland, Australia

ROSS | Australia

How Far Would You Go to Stop Another Crime?

Ross is a crime survivor who refuses to be sidelined. Due to the brutal murder of his son Michael nine years ago, one of Queensland’s worst crimes ever, his motivation for joining the Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace is simple:

“If we get through to just one inmate not to re-offend, we’ve done our job. That’s what it’s all about.”

Ross has seen the human damage one crime can do. He heads the Queensland Homicide Victims Support Group, which reaches out to families who have been devastated by serious crimes.

Hardened criminals fight back tears when they hear Ross recount the devastation he experienced for years after his son was killed.

It becomes a turning point for many in the room who have never thought about the long-term consequences of their actions. “When I tell my story, I can see it getting through,” Ross says. “Up until that point, they really don’t understand what we have been through. They don’t see the trauma they leave behind and the repercussions.”

These are tough guys, but when we talk to them, you can see the change. You can see it in their eyes.”

Ross continues, “My goal is to save just one person. That will make my life complete. And if I can do that, then I hope Michael would say to me ‘Hey dad, I’m proud of you’.”

Help prisoners and victims find healing and change. Learn more about The Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace.

Story credit: Martin Howard, Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace, Queensland, Australia; Photo credit: Emily Martin

KAREN | Australia

Secondary Victims of Crime are Prisoners Too

Karen’s daughter, Jesse, was 15-years-old when she was murdered. On what would have been Jesse’s 18th birthday, Karen shared her story with a group of prisoners during a Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace. During that course’s graduation, she shared the following:

“In so many ways, secondary victims of crime are prisoners too… prisoners trapped in pain, fear, and sometimes hate. 

“I wanted to be involved in the Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace, because I wanted to make something positive out of something so destructive. In the past, I have worked with secondary victims of crime and have shared their pain and related to their stories. I felt working with offenders would be a unique experience and chance for me to share my pain and bring home to them the reality of how violent crime impacts families and communities. But it also allowed me to see from another perspective and find common ground.

“After spending the last two weeks with offenders, I can see we all want a life where we are loved for who we are and where there is respect and a feeling of being part of, and not separate from, our community.

“It has shown me that within all of us is the capacity to connect with our fellow human beings and to come to a place of understanding, letting go, and allowing a shared experience (the sharing of our stories) to bring us closer as a community.

“I wish other secondary victims of crime could experience what I have and see we don’t need to be prisoners of pain and hate and fear.

This course helped me to forgive myself for past transgressions, and moved me to a place where I can see that forgiving the person who killed my daughter is possible.

“During the past few months, I have also come a long way in healing my relationship with God. I am now much more at ease with Christianity. I will always treasure my time with those in the course who were brave enough to take part in it and trust us enough to open up and share their pain and their stories. They have given me so much and I will always hold them close to my heart.”

Help victims like Karen find the strength to forgive.

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Learn more about our Restorative Justice programs:

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Story credit: Martin Howard, Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace, Queensland, Australia 

JEREMY | Australia

It was Life Affirming

Jeremy has spent the last 15 years in prison. When Jeremy started the Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace, he had no idea what to expect. He was apprehensive and feared the unknown.

During one session, the participants were split into small groups to talk about their life experiences.

“One person,” Jeremy says, “talked about what happened to him, and then to my absolute astonishment, spoke the path of forgiveness of this one’s perpetrator. You have a few profound moments in your life, and this was certainly one for me!”

Jeremy sat in awkward silence, wanting to say something. “My thoughts were scattered,” he says, “but two words kept coming to mind—courage and strength. The courage and strength to endure; the courage and strength to forgive. I told this person, ‘you are far stronger than I could ever be.’”

Jeremy went to bed that night thinking about this person’s journey and how it affected him so deeply.

“It made me want to strive to be a better human being,” he says. “It was life affirming.”

Jeremy fell asleep wanting to change his life’s direction, and woke up the next morning knowing he had started to change.

Jeremy says,

“I have done countless courses—some good, some bad. Without a shadow of a doubt, the Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peaceis the best thing that could ever have happened to me. The sheer rawness of emotions it delivers and the understanding and compassion it releases within people gives you a sense of hope for the future for everyone involved.”

Help prisoners like Jeremy find the courage turn their lives around.

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Learn more about our Restorative Justice programs:

Visit our Centre for Justice & Reconciliation

Story credit: Martin Howard, Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace, Queensland, Australia 

ELIZABETH | Australia

“I Experienced a Huge Amount of Healing”

Elizabeth suffered profoundly for two years before she was about to share her story. The source of her pain was the brutal attack of her widowed mother. This is what she shared at the end of her Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace course:

“When I decided to participate in this program, I didn’t really know if I would actually complete it. There were many highs and lows, but I just couldn’t wait to come back each week.

“In my mind, we are all equal. Survivors throwing each other a lifeline. We shared so much during the sessions, some sharing things we have never told a soul before.

“The Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace tests the edge and pushes the boundaries. The way the course chips away at the wall we have built around ourselves is quite amazing. It is truly based on honesty, trust, and respect. And the support we’ve shown each other has been heartwarming.

“For me personally, there has been a huge amount of healing.

“I had created my own personal hell and thought I was happy the way things were. But I needed closure. I can’t change what happened, but I can change what happens next. I know at times I will look back, but I guess if I can look back, it means that I have moved forward. I am on the road to shalom, and I look forward to seeing you all there… but I might be a bit late.

“I have seen huge changes. Many in this course have grown beyond belief. It has been truly an honor to listen to the stories. These have left footprints on my soul.”

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Story credit: Martin Howard, Sycamore Tree Project: Justice and Peace®: Justice and Peace, Queensland, Australia