Educational Software Boosting Opportunities for Belize’s Incarcerated

Virgilio Murillo

And as we head into 2022, the Kolbe Foundation is continuing to offer rehabilitative and educational programs for both youths and adults while they are incarcerated. Prison C.E.O., Virgilio Murillo told News Five that several hundred of the inmates from both the adult and youth populations have been learning different academic and vocational disciplines through programs that are offered at both the prison and the Wagner’s Youth Facility.

Virgilio Murillo, C.E.O., Kolbe Foundation

“Our curriculum has to do with the computer-assisted learning software that we have. We do have the Kaina Online High School, of which a couple of them are participating, where they can obtain their high school diploma upon completion. We also have this program called the RACHEL program, which stands for Remote Access Community Hotspot for Education and Learning, which is pretty much a computerized program. It has a stand-alone server that the contents that are on that server are controlled by the Prison. In other words, we put what we want to study there. You can learn a range of things on that platform: plumbing, electrical, air-conditioning, woodwork, you name it. Besides that, you can do biology, science, plants, animals, whatever. So, it is a wonderful program and I am happy because the contents on it we control what we put in there, so you will never go on that server and find pornography or violence or these kinds of things on it. And quite a number of persons are participating. We have it at the Tango seven building; we have it at the remanded block, Tango nine, Tango eleven. It’s almost four hundred people that are participating in that particular program. And you know, one of the exciting things about it is the fact that they get to have what you call the Chrome-books with them, so it’s really having access to that device and reading. I think it gives them some kind of excitement because remember at first, things like computers and tablets were not allowed in a prison. But prisons are modernizing now, so we have to go with flow.”