The Goodies Music Foundation, headed by Isaac Asiedu Aidoo, known in showbiz as Goodies, in collaboration with the Ghana Prisons Service has launched a project to improve the poor and deplorable conditions in Ghana’s prisons.

The project was launched last Thursday in Accra at the Superior Officers’ Mess, Prison Headquarters. It was under the theme: “Prisons Rehabilitation and Reformation Project.”

Briefing participants about the project, Goodies said the idea came to him during the Ghana@50 celebrations.

“During the celebrations I felt for inmates who are in deplorable conditions in the prisons. They were left out of the activities even though they are also Ghanaians,” he lamented.

This, he said, touched him and he suggested the project to the Ghana Prisons Service.

Having attained 50 years of independence, Goodies said, there was the need for the country to turn its attention to prisoners and the Prisons Service as a whole.

He said: “Our prisons are in unacceptable state, very unsuitable for any reformation to take place. They do not inspire and motivate officers and men with their work to the maximum.”

The project, therefore, was to correct the anomaly, he said, adding “it is aimed at improving and rehabilitating facilities in the prisons as well as initiating reformation and motivation programmes through recreational, entertainment and other social activities”.

The programmes, he noted, would be in the form of musical concerts, sporting activities and more.

In view of this, a musical show would be organized on Saturday, December 8 at the National Theatre in Accra, to raise funds for the prisons but would be preceded by a familiarisation tour of the prisons by musicians. This is expected to be an annual programme.

Other programmes under the project include agriculture, upgrading training facilities for catering as well as refurbishing technical workshops for carpentry, metal works and others.

“Agriculture would be in the position to produce far in excess of the feeding demands of the inmates and if possible, for export,” said Goodies.

According to him, top on the agenda of the project is the training of staff of the Prisons Service and inmates in the area of Information Technology. Goodies called for press support in the project, adding that one would never know when he or she could find himself or herself in prison.

The programme was attended by officials of the Ghana Prisons Service and the music fraternity, the press, academicians and representatives from Non-Governmental Organization (NGOs).

Among them were Mr. Hayford Kornney, Acting Director General of the Prisons Service; Mr. Frank Ocran, Member of the Council of the Prisons Service, Alhaji Sidiku Buari, president of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) and others.

They all pledged their support to Goodies and asked society to also lend a helping hand to the Prisons Service.