What has changed as a result of the intervention?

Since Dr Adarves-Yorno’s 2016 visit, Mindful Leader training has been incorporated into the prison’s formal education programme, with the support of the Officer in Charge. A fulltime course runs from Monday-Friday and there is also a shorter Wednesday afternoon course. Both are taught by inmates who are trained teachers and who participated in Dr Adarves-Yorno’s training workshops. A Self-Discovery and Mindfulness Handbook developed by Dr Adarves-Yorno and colleagues forms the basis for the ongoing training in the prison, with the idea that the Mindful Leaders’ groups will add contextual aspects to this handbook. The Mindful leader training has the enthusiastic support of the Director of Rehabilitation and Offender Management of the Kenya Prison Service.

The University of Exeter Business School has provided stationary materials, two computers and a printer. The Africa Prisons Project facilitates the provision of materials and a small team of designated prison staff support the programme within the prison. However the essential actors are the Mindful leaders themselves and among them several particularly dedicated individuals, who have developed teaching materials, kept attendance registers, created and administered tests and ensured that meetings, poems and songs are documented.

Overall the Mindful leader programme is providing an opportunity for prisoners serving long term sentences to find renewed hope and purpose in their lives. Participants (Mindful leaders and trainees) are increasingly able to accept their situation, manage their emotions and focus their attention on positive rather than negative thoughts and actions. This is resulting in prisoners who feel better about themselves, improved relationships between prisoners and between inmates and prison officers, reduced drug use and, as a result, a prison regime that runs more smoothly. The Mindful Leaders are divided into 10 groups, each named for an aspect of Mindful leadership, thus providing a basic organisational structure.

How has the intervention made a difference at individual, group and institutional levels, and in wider society?

During the evaluators’ initial meeting with 78 Mindful leaders and the staff team at the regular Wednesday afternoon session, the voluntary high attendance was impressive, since the meeting coincided with torrential rain, which meant a prolonged dash from the cell blocks to the school in the pouring rain. After initial introductions, the Mindful leaders worked in their 10 groups to answer the following questions:

1) How can we know that the ML programme is making a difference at an individual level?
2) How can we know that the ML programme is making a difference at community (prison) level?

The feedback from the groups can be found in Annex 1 and their input was further explored during subsequent interviews.

At individual level

There is no doubt that the Mindful leader training has transformed the lives of many participants. Prisoners with long, life, and death sentences repeatedly described their experiences of using the Mindful leader techniques as part of a gradual process of change that has enabled them to:

• Adopt and express positive as opposed to negative attitudes
• Manage emotions such as fear and anger
• Feel less rejection, hostility, fear and loneliness
• Reduce their levels of stress
• Accept their situation and let go of what they can’t change
• Understand themselves and others
• Reflect before acting
• Stop using drugs
• Forgive themselves and others
• Become more resilient
• Become a mentor or role model to help others

This list reflects the changes most commonly mentioned during the interviews and group work. Some Mindful leaders also spoke of overall improved mental wellbeing, sleeping better, greater self-confidence and capacity for self-expression and feeling more empathy for others.

Interviewees spoke genuinely and shared examples of how their feelings, thoughts and behaviour had changed. It was clear from their expressions, words and overall demeanour, that for many, participation in the Mindful leadership training has been a transformative experience.

Mindful leaders demonstrated a good understanding of the concept of resilience through examples from their own experiences, often concerning coming to terms with their prison sentences. Their responses bore testimony to their improved quality of life and emotional well-being, regular activities designed to help and support others (benevolence) and a positive outlook and hope for the future.

At group level

Mindful leader participants consistently described improved relationships with their fellow inmates, including talking to each other more politely, fewer violent interactions and, as a consequence, less fear. Many described better relationships with their immediate cellmates (ordinary prisoners live 7 to a cell and teachers live 5 to a cell) and more harmonious organisation of daily chores and easier conflict resolution, increasingly without recourse to prison staff.

Mindful leaders described how they approach other inmates to offer information about mindfulness and mentor any who show interest. Several said that this demands a degree of confidence and courage since inmates are not always receptive to these approaches. Some said they had successfully passed on the techniques or convinced new members to enrol in the training. Some teachers use part of their classes in other subjects to pass on the mindfulness message and one mentioned using some of the mindfulness techniques to ensure that his learners are relaxed and ready to give their attention to the topic for the day.

The Mindful leader groups have done some work on developing ideas for the handbook and teaching and learning materials. Participants consistently described belonging to the group as “very important” in their lives.

It was difficult to definitively identify clear differences between Mindful leaders and Mindful trainees. Some of the original inmates trained by Dr Adarves-Yorno are now enrolled in the training, so are technically both Mindful leaders and Mindful trainees. A number of the trainees spoke of and demonstrated profound transformation as a result of their experience, similar to that experienced by many Mindful leaders. The few inmates interviewed who have received informal training through conversations with Mindful leaders or trainees demonstrated a lesser degrees of understanding and change, but the number interviewed was small and communication was difficult due to language issues.

At institutional level

At the institutional level, it is important to mention the programme of improvement that has been underway in Kenyan prisons in recent years. An open door policy encourages greater interaction with wider society and prisoners spend less time locked in their cells and have greater opportunities for education and rehabilitation. Naivasha is at the forefront of these initiatives, which have created an environment where the Mindful leader programme can flourish.

Mindful leaders report improved relationships with prison staff as a result of accepting their situation and greater cooperation with the prison regime. Prison officers directly involved with the programme concurred with this. While, overall the influence of the Mindful leader teachings is clearly very positive, as yet they have reached a relatively small group of inmates, with a focus on those trained as teachers. Some of the officers working with the programme also said they used the practices with good effect and thought that their fellow officers would benefit from training opportunities.

One Mindful leader shares the training with prisoners affected by HIV&AIDS. He has observed decreases in anger and aggression, a greater ability to reason and discuss and more attention to taking medication regularly. He sees the prisoner-to-prisoner approach as particularly appropriate for this group.

Eight Mindful leaders are part of Africa Prisons Project para-legal program, indicating the complementarity of the Mindful leader program with other initiatives to support prisoners. One of the Africa Prisons’ Project staff said that Mindful leaders tend to be more emotionally stable and are therefore in a good position to do the para-legal work.

In wider society

Several Mindful leaders reported passing on mindfulness techniques to their families and said that this was helping to reduce stress.

One interviewee described how Mindful Leader training had influenced him to instruct his wife to sell a piece of land to enable her to repay a loan. She had passed on the loan to her brother, who failed to repay it, but she was the one held responsible and risked arrest. She had been planning violence towards her brother’s family, but the situation was resolved due to the action of her husband in Naivasha. This serves as a small example of how the Mindful Leader training is having an effect in wider society, and its potential for widening spirals of impact.

A number of interviewees brought up the importance of the training to people outside prison, particularly young people who are facing the stress of modern living often without a source of regular income. Several said that they intended to teach the practices in their communities when they were released.