Citizenship award 2010: Jacqueline Rousseau and Guido Verschueren

2010: Jacqueline Rousseau, founder of Adeppi (Atelier d'Education Permanente pour Personnes Incarcérées) and Guido Verschueren, director of the Leuven prison. 

Jacqueline Rousseau (ADEPPI)

The association Adeppi is active in the prisons of Saint-Gilles, Forest-Berkendael, Nivelles, Namur, Ittre, Andenne, Huy, Tournai, Marneffe and Mons and has made the ambitious bet to introduce education in the broadest sense of the word and culture there.

She organises writing, percussion and theatre workshops and concerts in these prisons and tries to rehabilitate the sense of creativity there. 

Adeppi publishes a brochure there featuring the penmanship of inmates with the revealing title: " Vivement dehors ! Les compagnons de l'impossible ".

It organises courses there that allow one to obtain the certificate of basic education (mathematics, perfecting one's mother tongue, etc.), but also certified courses in computer science, catering and catering, electricity and even horticulture.

Of course, given the numerous obstacles, the diploma results do not always fulfil all expectations, but still, Adeppi's presence undoubtedly provides a glimmer of humanity and hope in the very misunderstood and neglected Belgian prison system.

Guido Verschueren

Leuven Central Prison, better known as Leuven-Centraal, is exactly 150 years old this year. Guido Verschueren has been running this 350-place penitentiary since 1979. He lives with his wife and three children in the prison's management house.

It houses mainly long-sentenced prisoners for whom a regime specifically tailored to long-term detention has been developed.  The policies he and his staff have pursued over the past decades have pursued can be summarised on the basis of three major principles:

• Human dignity
• Meaningful detention
• Involvement with society

(download pdf Laureates 2010 in french or dutch)