The Minister of the Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, Elena Espinosa, today inaugurated the new course of the “Oxygen Project” in the women’s prison of Alcalá de Henares. The Minister was accompanied by the Secretary General of Penitentiary Institutions of the Ministry of the Interior, Mercedes Gallizo; the manager of the Autonomous Training Agency for Employment and Penitentiary Work, Ceferino Delgado, and the director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Ana Leiva.

At the opening ceremony of the 2009-2010 academic year of the Oxygen Project, diplomas were also awarded to the students who successfully completed the last academic year.

The “Oxygen Project” aims to create training spaces in prisons that facilitate the development of professional skills related to the environment for their inmates. It is promoted by the Ministry of the Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior; the first through the Biodiversity Foundation and the Autonomous National Parks Agency, and the second, through the Autonomous Prison Work and Training for Employment and the Navalcarnero penitentiary center. In addition, it has the participation of three social organizations with extensive experience in this area: Open Horizons, Solidarity for Development and the Tomillo Foundation.

It is estimated that, by 2010, some 500 students will have been trained in the Forestry Worker and Gardening modules, in the prisons of Navalcarnero, Madrid I (Alcalá de Henares), Segovia, Algeciras, Madrid VI (Aranjuez) and Palma de Mallorca.

The interns deepen their knowledge of environmental matters that offer interesting employment prospects. The practical orientation of the curricula ensures the development of sufficient skills to exercise a profession. It is a matter of rescuing the values of nature for the benefit of the person, opening useful ways for their future reintegration into society.

A PILOT EXPERIENCE THAT IS IN ITS SECOND EDITION

The “Oxygen Project” is being developed in six Spanish prisons. Thus, between 15 and 20 inmates participate in this occupational training in the two courses of which the cycle consists, in each of the centers. The supervised internships are carried out on farms of the National Parks Autonomous Agency and the Biodiversity Foundation. In addition, as part of the career guidance program and for the development of social skills, workshops and field visits are carried out.

As a complement to the training that will allow them to become gardeners and forestry workers, students attend lectures given by university professors and experts of recognized prestige in environmental issues in the Biodiversity Classroom.

This model experience began in November 2006, when representatives of the Biodiversity Foundation, the Autonomous Prison Work and Training for Employment (OATPFE) and the National Parks Autonomous Agency signed a Framework Collaboration Agreement for the implementation of the “Oxygen Project”. From then on, a pilot training program was developed in the Navalcarnero penitentiary, with 30 students.

The good reception of this first programme gave way to the launch of the project which, in the 2007-2008 academic year, involved 193 students from the centres of Navalcarnero, Madrid I (Alcalá de Henares), Segovia, Algeciras, Madrid VI (Aranjuez) and Palma de Mallorca. In the 2008-2009 academic year, the project continues in the same centres, with more than 200 inmates registered.