OUR CATHOLIC COMMUNITY FORUM (OCCF)

Report on Our Catholic Community Forum Abuja Cell Visitation

Date of Visit: 11th January 2025

Location: Nigerian Police Station Masaka

Participants: Five members of Our Catholic Community Forum

Objective:

To bring spiritual encouragement, hope, and a message of reconciliation and forgiveness to suspects as well as relief materials

Activities:

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Arrival and introduction by our Leader Sis Jennifer Raphael.

11:00 AM - 11:15 AM: Sharing of the word of God by Bro Jude

11:15 AM - 11:30 AM: Sharing of cooked food to the suspects.

11:30 AM - 11:45 AM: Words of appreciation by the D.P.O. The D.P.O welcomed us with open hands and the whole officers on duty were delighted.

11:45 AM - 12 PM: Supposed to be sharing of relief materials but we were told that it would be distributed later to them owing that some items like shaving pen and roll on we bought could be used as weapons by any of the suspect, therefore we had group photographs.

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Departure and refreshment.

Observations and Recommendations:

We observed that some of the suspects thought that we are Human Rights Advocate that came to speak on their behalf.

We also observed that the things we bought seems to be more beneficial to the warders than the suspects and we recommend that next time we should have visited that place abinitio before buying things because it would go a long way in helping us buy the prioritized things that will benefit the suspect more.

The visitation was a meaningful initiative that at least brought relief especially that of hunger to the suspects

Items purchase:

* Moping stick, moping bucket and bathing buckets and bowel

* Toothbrushes, toothpaste an Air freshener

* Bathing soaps and detergents

* sanitary pads

* shaving sticks

* Deodorants and Izal

* tissue

* Cook food purchase(23 person)

2Bags of Pure water

Brooms

Below are some photos taken on the visit;

Relief Items

Arrival

At the Police station

Members and Staff

Refreshment Moment

Departure

We thank God for a successful outreach and the constant effort of our Spiritual director; Rev. Fr. Justin Mbaeri, OSJ, his Assistant Rev. Fr. Toby Ndiukwu and the entire planning committee of the 2025 Outreach team.

Long live OCCF

Report of our Visit to Onitsha Prison.

The event which held on Sunday 12th January took place at the St Maximilian Kolbe Chaplaincy inside the prison. It was preceded by a Holy Mass that was celebrated by the Chaplain, Rev Fr Nnamdi Okpalaugo.

The message from our Spiritual Director to the prisoners was read by the Chaplain after which, we were given the opportunity to speak to them and give them words of encouragement. That was well delivered by one of us. We used the opportunity to introduce OCCF to all the people in the church, with prayers that they join the forum if they regain their freedom.

Interestingly, one of us, sis Vivian Okoronkwo had her birthday to celebrate and she graciously decided to colour the event with the celebration. Coincidentally, another visitor who had her birthday that day also came to celebrate with the prisoners. The colourful event gave the prisoners some excitements that made them feel as though they were home.

After the Mass, we made our presentation. The chaplain thanked and commended us, expressing delight over our organisation and conduct. He was full of praises for our Spiritual Director and prayed that God will bless and continue to guide him.

We departed the prison at about 12.noon and proceeded to an eatery where we had our refreshments.

After our refreshments we made a pilgrim visit to the Basilica of the Holy Trinity. I can't recount everything we saw but we really felt fulfilled going there. Personally, I never knew such magnificent facility exist in Onitsha.

In attendance were five of us including a member that was accompanied by her husband and daughter.

Below are some photos taken on our visit...