Agreement between the Centre of Initiatives for Reintegration and the University of Barcelona to improve the job skills of inmates in prisons and educational centres

From left to right, Xavier López, Joan Guàrdia and David Font.
From left to right, Xavier López, Joan Guàrdia and David Font.
News | Solidarity
(20/06/2024)
The Centre of Initiatives for Reintegration (CIRE) will expand the range of training courses offered to inmates of juvenile justice prisons and educational centres with the aim of increasing the real chances of these people finding employment. This is stated in the agreement signed this morning by the Director of CIRE, David Font, the Rector of the University of Barcelona, Joan Guàrdia, and the Director of the UB Solidarity Foundation, Xavier López. The CIRE is the public company of the Department of Justice, Rights and Memory, which offers training, work and job placement to people who have spent time in prison or in a juvenile justice educational centre. 
From left to right, Xavier López, Joan Guàrdia and David Font.
From left to right, Xavier López, Joan Guàrdia and David Font.
News | Solidarity
20/06/2024
The Centre of Initiatives for Reintegration (CIRE) will expand the range of training courses offered to inmates of juvenile justice prisons and educational centres with the aim of increasing the real chances of these people finding employment. This is stated in the agreement signed this morning by the Director of CIRE, David Font, the Rector of the University of Barcelona, Joan Guàrdia, and the Director of the UB Solidarity Foundation, Xavier López. The CIRE is the public company of the Department of Justice, Rights and Memory, which offers training, work and job placement to people who have spent time in prison or in a juvenile justice educational centre. 

David Font, director of CIRE, noted that this agreement “will allow us to increase and improve the training model in prisons and educational centres, with an offering adapted to the current labour market’s opportunities”. 

Xavier López, director of the UB Solidarity Foundation, highlighted the experience of the Foundation and the UB’s Faculty of Education in the organization of courses aimed at “providing or strengthening skills to people at risk of exclusion, in order to promote their integration into the labour market, which is one of the foundations of any process of social inclusion”.   

Joan Guàrdia, rector of the UB, stressed that “scientific evidence shows that education is one of the most efficient mechanisms for cultivating values such as civic-mindedness, cooperation and solidarity. These principles are fundamental for coexistence in a democracy”. He also said that this agreement “is a key part of the UB’s commitment to society as a whole, leaving no one behind”. 

Improving social skills, transversal competences and human rights 

Inmates who successfully complete the course will receive a university diploma in different areas of work, issued by the UB. This will help them to improve their professional curriculum in order to find a job when they are in the last phase of their sentence or at liberty. 

This training aims to offer a specific and complementary preparation to each of the training courses offered by CIRE and certified by the Catalan Employment Service (SOC) in the fields of plumbing, welding, gardening, IT, hairdressing, catering and dressmaking. 

The courses, which will last six hours, will take place in the penitentiary and educational centres themselves and will work on social skills, transversal competences and human rights.

The courses, which will last six hours, will take place in the penitentiary and educational centres themselves and will work on social skills, transversal competences and human rights. Teachers from the University and the Foundation will travel to the centres to train the inmates in two sessions of three hours each. 

The agreement will last for four years and begins with a pilot test at the Quatre Camins Penitentiary Centre. Currently, the CIRE provides an average of 270 training actions per year, between the certificates of professionalism co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the CIRE’s specific courses, in which some 2,800 students are trained each year. 

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