The Peace Education Program (PEP) is being well received in Ghana. The innovative course has been approved by national authorities to be offered at every correctional facility in the country. It is currently running at seven of them, helping inmates and prison staff discover their inner resources. David Agbley is an inmate who attended the 10-week workshop in Accra’s Senior Correctional Center. This is David’s letter to the officer who facilitated his PEP class.

Dear Madam:

I hope you are fine. I am very happy to write you this letter. The reason I am writing it is to tell you something about my life. I used to cry day and night. Why? It was because of who I was and the circumstances of my life. For the last 20 years, I had no one to look up to. I have no mother, no father, no sister or brother. It seemed that I was living my life for nothing. When I looked at myself, I saw me as nobody. Because of this, I just felt like giving up. I wanted to die.

I told myself that I would take my life in prison because it felt like the end of my life. But in all of this, God worked for my good. From the day I started this Peace Education Program, my life has totally changed. I now have peace in me.

All things are going well, and I thank God for my life. With this Peace Education Program, I now know that even if I have no mother, no father, no sister or brother, I have life. Joy and peace are living in me, and I can do something good. Thank you very much for bringing this program to me.

In closing, I want to remind you of something Prem Rawat said in one of the PEP workshops that changed everything. He said that there is an attraction to peace built into every human being. So we should respond to that need, because if you don’t know it, no matter what you do, the story of your life will be incomplete. Thank you for this program. I have taken it to heart, and it has changed my life.

I am now a star… a star that’s bright because my future is bright.

Thank you, thank you. David Agbley.

Editor’s note: Since writing this letter, David has started volunteering to help facilitate PEP for his fellow inmates.