Event

The Centre for Gender and Development Studies (CGDS) will continue its Lunchtime seminar series on Wednesday 8^th April 2009, with a seminar entitled “Once a thief, always a thief”. This seminar will be held at the CGDS Seminar Room at 12:00 noon. The feature speaker at this event is Ellen O’Malley Camps.  

The seminar will examine the possibilities for transformation in Trinidad’s Prison System. The prison environment does not foster transformation and prisons are often regarded as ‘Universities of Crime.’ As a result of a global trend towards a paradigm of restorative justice Trinidad’s prison system is in transition. Therein resides the possibilities for transformation. In conjunction with prison personnel other local stakeholders are beginning to see the need to ‘restore justice’ to disadvantaged citizens and their families through special programmes designed to minimise the ‘separateness’ and the isolation, which exacerbate the released prisoner problem of reintegration into family, community and society as a whole.    

About the presenter:

Ellen O’Malley Camps MA, P. Dip. Med., MIACP is a Life Coach, Human Relations Consultant & Psychotherapist (Psychosynthesis & Education Trust, London) with a background in teaching (Teacher’s Training College, Dublin), theology (University of Dublin), Mediation Studies (UWI, Trinidad) and theatre (actor, producer/director & writer).  She is an accredited member of the Irish & European Assoc. for Counseling & Psychotherapy, the Conflict Resolution & Mediation Association of Trinidad & Tobago.  She is founder of the Housewives Association of Trinidad & Tobago (HATT), EMERJ Associates, Trinidad Tent Theatre, Téyat Toutafé & Brown Cotton Tent theatre. She has worked regionally and internationally as a psychotherapist, a teacher/director and a trainer/facilitator in both the public and private sectors.