Philemon Ministries
| Motto | Changing Lives, Changing Communities |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1992 |
| Type | Christian prison ministry |
| Headquarters | Nairobi, Kenya |
|
Founder
|
Kelvin Mwikya |
|
Key people
|
Andrew MacKay, Chair Philemon UK |
| Website | http://philemonafrica.org |
Philemon Ministries is a charitable foundation started by Kelvin Mwikya in Nairobi, Kenya in 1992. The charity provides food, shelter, counselling, community, training and employment to prisoners and former prisoners. The charity is supported by the Office of the Vice-President of Kenya and Lord Goldsmith.
The charity's name comes from the Epistle to Philemon in the Bible, in which the apostle Paul mediated the relationship between the changed prisoner Onesimus and his former master Philemon.
Philemon focuses on the rehabilitation of current and former prisoners in Kenya. The organizations provides food, shelter, counselling, community, training, and employment with the ultimate goal of reintegration into society.
Mwikya was wrongly convicted of robbery with violence in Kenya, as a result of corrupt officials and family members. On 26 February 1994, during his time in prison, Mwikya became a Christian. As he daily began to read the Bible, the bitterness and resentment towards his family faded.
In the toilets of the Kenyan prisons, Bibles were being used as toilet paper, due to lack of toilet paper. Mwikya committed to provide prisoners with toilet paper, in order to preserve the Bibles in the prisons. After release from prison, Mwikya used his wages to buy toilet paper and soap to take back into Kenyan prisons for the benefit of the prisoners. He also bought two mattresses and opened his small bedroom to ex-convicts with whom he was in touch.
In 2002, Philemon was officially founded by Mwikya as a Kenyan charity. His first action was to address the very basic needs of prisoners, through the provision of toilet paper, soap, food and clothing. As Philemon grew, Mwikya started more ambitious interventions, such as business skills classes with participants learning skills such as financial management, stock-keeping and costing.
Philemon established the first half-way home in Kenya, accommodating residents on a six-month program. As of January 2011, approximately 150 released prisoners have passed through the halfway house. Residents learn skills such as carpentry, metalwork and tailoring in the social enterprise businesses of Philemon. Philemon assists residents to go on and find employment, for example, by helping residents to obtain ID cards.
Mwikya's work got noticed, both by local churches who wanted to help and by government officials, who asked him to help them address the inherent failures of the system.
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Wikipedia