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Canberra Today 24°/27° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Christmas loneliness of the prison ‘widow’

Meg Fitzgerald, of Kairos Outside for Women... “We are at work with people that don’t judge, that are very respectful. We see people as equal.” Photo by Silas Brown

CHRISTMAS time can be a difficult and lonely time for women with loved ones in prison.

“When you go to the visiting centre at the jail it’s a terribly hard time,” says Meg Fitzgerald, of the international, Christian-based Kairos Outside for Women, an organisation dedicated to helping women who suffer from the impacts of having family or friends who are incarcerated.

“We can’t force people to come to Kairos Outside and we’re not saying it’s the only way, the only answer, but it is an opportunity to break the cycle of isolation and loneliness,” says Meg.

“It’s another view point, another life alternative. It’s an opportunity to break the cycle of hopelessness.”

Through the chaplaincy program at Alexander McConochie Centre, Kairos invites “guests” who are regular visitors of the jail, to their special free weekend, that gives women the opportunity to meet other women in similar circumstances.

The weekend has a strict confidentiality rule – “what you say there, stays there”.

According to a former inmate and now Kairos volunteer, Sue, the weekends give women the opportunity to realise they are not alone.

“A lot of ladies say when they’ve gone to the jails on the weekend, after they have gone on the Kairos weekend, instead of hiding their heads in shame, they have seen someone who was at that Kairos weekend,” she says.

The weekend also creates a friendship base, for regular coffee dates or just for a chat.

Suzanne is a grandmother, whose granddaughter served a sentence in Bimberi. She had been invited to weekends before, but this year was the first time she said “yes”.

“It’s been the best. It was like all my birthdays and Christmases had come at once.”

Meg says often women try to hide the shame and pain they carry, when a loved one is incarcerated.

“Just the shock and grief that they go through wondering what on earth is going to happen to their child or their partner in prison,” says Meg.

“If it’s their husband who goes to prison, and sure they’ve done the wrong thing and we’re not saying that’s a bad thing, but the finances stop.

“It can happen to someone who is having a very nice life and, all of a sudden, they are back having to re-train, re-educate, get a job.

“The whole of the family fabric breaks down and the psychological impact is just huge because of that factor.

“When they come to Kairos Outside they see that we are at work with people that don’t judge, that are very respectful. We see people as equal.”

And for Christmas they will be holding a special “dress as your favourite diva” Christmas Party.

“For the wives, the mothers, the sisters, the grandmothers, [Kairos Outside for Women] makes them understand they’re not alone, not going to have to do the sentence on the outside alone,” Sue says.

“Because if you have someone on the inside doing a two-year sentence, you are doing the two-year sentence on the outside.

“We need to make them understand we care, and there are other women who are going through the same thing.”

More information and donations to www.kairos.org.au

[box]“Kairos Outside” began in San Quentin State Correctional Facility, California, in 1989, when the chaplain saw a need to help prisoners’ families on the basis that those on the outside were often having as many problems as the loved one on the inside.
Kairos, a Greek word for a “special time” for a particular event, is active in more than 400 prisons and has more than 20,000 volunteers around the world. In Australia, Kairos Outside started in Sydney in 1999 and operates in 11 regions. [/box]

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