"You may not be able to fix lives, but if you can make someone feel that their life is WORTH fixing... that is something...
something wonderful".

HeartWork’s main focus is on offering support and growth opportunities to both people in prison and their families.

The programme started with a 13-week Personal Growth Course, run for people who are in prison, and it remains the focus of this work at the moment. We also offer a full day workshop and some support during the course for the families of the participants. The course focuses on emotional and spiritual healing and growth, and also covers aspects of social interaction and functioning.

While the project started with this one course, it has developed an ongoing support programme for those who have completed the course and is offering limited support for reintegration as well.

While the motivation for the work has been the love of Jesus in our lives and his healing of our pain, this course is not aimed only at Christian people and does not have evangelism as a central focus or goal. It is meant for anyone who is interested in personal growth and emotional healing. We do use the characteristics and values we believe Jesus personified and teaches and see these to be: love unconditionally and without judgement, condemnation and rejection; kindness and servanthood in that we believe that we are there to serve others; we believe in showing respect to others and treating them with dignity and with an appreciation of their individuality and value; and with enormous gentleness and the intimate realisation that each person we encounter has a history and a story that is unknown to us, and that will contain many experiences of which some will have been very painful.

We do this to serve God and because we pray that he gives us his heart for his people. We want to serve with his compassion and love at all times and want him to use our efforts along with all the other interventions and continuous work that he is doing in, with and through them.

We feel we take in quite a simple programme that offers opportunities for personal sharing and contemplation and we take it in with love and with commitment. God seems to take these rather limited offerings and uses them to change and transform people’s lives and sometimes the lives of their families. He does something quite different in each person and we are always encouraged and amazed to see what He does and what He accomplishes and we are enormously grateful for an opportunity to work with Him and be a part of what He is doing.

Read more of these womens stories here

HOW CAN YOU BE INVOLVED?

1. FINANCIAL SUPPORT
   All the people working in HeartWork are volunteers and the cost of running the courses is covered through informal fundraising and donations. It costs about R20 000 to run one course for 24 people over 13 weeks. This includes petrol and transport costs, printing, paper and stationery costs, and telephone, catering and gift bags.
   
   
2. FOOD AND CATERING
   
   • Each week of the course, tea, coffee and cookies are taken in for teatime. This is done because eating together is a basic form of nurturing and because of the emotional intensity of the sessions. It is good just to take a break, talk together and enjoy some refreshment before the next part of the session begins. Donations of cookies, muffins, tea, coffee, milk, mugs and so on would be most helpful.
     
   • When the full day family workshop is held, tea is provided in the morning and afternoon and lunch is prepared for up to 150 people. Once again, this is meant to be a kind nurturing experience for people who are terribly traumatized by all they have gone through. Many of them also come from quite far, and it is good to give them something to eat before they leave for home again.
     
   • We also cater a full lunch for about 150 people at the graduation at the end of the course, which is held on the prison grounds, and any help with food, cool drinks or catering would be a wonderful and most appreciated assistance. We try to make a cooked meal like lasagna and serve it with salads and bread rolls.
     
3. FLOWERS
   We enjoy having flowers on all the tables at the graduation, and we use white roses or daisies to place on the cross as a picture of forgiveness and healing. The prison is a very dull environment, and during this very special celebration it is just wonderful to bring colour, beauty, nature and wonderful fragrance to this stark, arid environment.
   
4. PHOTOGRAPHS & DVDs
   We try to take photographs of our graduations to remember these special occasions and we like to take pictures of each participant with their families so that they have a keepsake to remember the occasion. Also, when a loved one is in prison for a long period of time, children grow and change and struggle to remember the realness of their mothers. It feels like a wonderful kind gift to give them a picture of them with their mother.
   
5. NETWORKING
   If you are also working in prison or doing similar work outside prison, please contact us. We love to hear what other people are doing and we enjoying working alongside other organisations so that we do not duplicate any work and so that we can continue to be an encouragement to and learn from one another.
   
6. VOLUNTEER
   You may already be involved or trained to do work similar to this and you might find this an interesting option. Please contact us if you are interested in volunteering on one of our teams. We would love to hear from you.
   
7. FUNDRAISING
   Perhaps you are one of those rare individuals who loves raising funds, or who is a successful business person, and knows that your gift is in earning and making money, and you would like to partner with us and help to support this phenomenal work. If you are, please contact us, we truly would love to hear from you.
   
8. SKILLS TRAINING & EMPLOYMENT
   Without really intensive reintegration, and skills training as well as employment opportunities or some kind of income earning options, many of the people being released will lose the hope they have gently nurtured. When this happens alongside the needs they have for basic food, shelter, and the needs of their children for school fees, uniforms, medication, stationery and so on, they feel the rejection and hopelessness of being outside in society. Eventually it begins to feel as if only drastic measures like suicide, returning to prison or committing crime are the only possible options for them.
   
   So, please let us know if you are able to train people in skills that they can use to earn money, or if you are willing to speak to us and allow us to recommend someone we have worked with and feel we could recommend to you for employment. Perhaps think of employing a released offender.