On December 6, 2019, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Latvia presented the first annual "Human to Human" award, for the volunteers as a recognition of their hard work at the annual conference for volunteer work in justice sector.
In Latvia, since 2016, with the support of co-financing from the European Social Fund, the system of voluntary work in the execution of criminal penalties has been significantly improved. The task of the execution of a criminal sentence is to make a person hold back from committing criminal offenses, and volunteer support, is aimed to help prisoners and probation clients to reach this aim by also promoting their integration into the society.
It is important that a person has a job and a home after serving his sentence, that he is accepted by his family and the wider society, because each of these factors significantly reduces the risk of recidivism. The work of volunteers, with their selfless contributions helps the ex-prisoners to integrate into society and helps them to understand the processes how the society works.
By supporting voluntary work in the execution of criminal sentence, Latvia has started a path towards public participation, breaking the ice of stereotypes from both sides - prisoners and ex-prisoners, and the society. With the help of the "Human to Human" award, we want to celebrate the participation and contribution of society representatives, volunteers, and associates in the development of the resocialization system.
The award and the video were created by the European Social Fund project of the Ministry of Justice "Technical assistance to the Ministry of Justice as the responsible institution in the implementation of information and publicity measures (2019-2021)".
