BSV Wassenberg cooperates with JVA Heinsberg
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Sports club integrates inmates with sports
Sports official Leif Herfs (left) and the chairman of BSV Wassenberg, Peter Dohmen (4th from left), watch a baseball game in the Heinsberg prison.
Photo: Alexandra Nowack-Dittmer / BSV
Wassenberg It has now been a good five years since the BSV Wassenberg consciously went to the Heinsberg correctional facility for the first time. A first careful trial training led to a cooperation that has endured to this day.
Regular soft and baseball training units have long been part of the everyday life of the club, but above all part of the everyday life of the young prisoners.
This mere collaboration, which in itself is already presentable, has meanwhile turned into something great, which has even been a topic of conversation on the international stage. Because: The BSV Wassenberg has become more active and has used Erasmus +, so that the bottom line is that there is a Europe-wide network with the STEPS project. “We are not the only association that is known in the prison in Heinsberg. Some are already doing it. but we consciously go in and train with the inmates, ”explains Peter Dohmen, the chairman of the BSV Wassenberg. What he means by that: As an example, he cites sports clubs that pick up individual inmates from the prison for training and bring them back later. The BSV, on the other hand, can address more young inmates of the prison in Heinsberg. By the way, the contact came about through sports officials of the prison. So everything was more or less by chance, so to speak, but it was clear from the start that the idea would be a good one. Not every detainee takes part in the training. Anyone who is allowed to participate must have demonstrated good leadership beforehand.
Not only Peter Dohmen is pleased that the training in the prison works so smoothly. “Through the sport, the inmates learn to develop their own talents. They learn how to build a positive social network so that they do not fall back into old patterns after their dismissal. ”The aim of Erasmus + is precisely: to offer people who find themselves in difficult life situations a chance to participate in society. At the BSV Wassenberg it is also clear to the actors: The inmates of the Heinsberg prison bring different stories with them. All of these stories are personal, bad because they have to do with crime. Through the training with the BSV, the prisoners learn something about what is happening “outside”.
Thanks to the “Steps” project at Erasmus +, the concept has actually got around internationally and across Europe. It was clear to many that there was too little overall to offer the inmates a kind of balance to life in the prison. Sport is a very good tool, emphasizes Peter Dohmen. However, he also admits that at the beginning there were already thoughts as to whether everything would work well. But after five years now, it is clear to him, trainer Alexandra Nowack-Dittmer and the BSV team: The way to Heinsberg to the correctional facility was worthwhile and will continue. The tournaments, which have already been pulled through very successfully together with the prisoners, should be resumed at some point, if the pandemic situation allows. In this way, the BSV Wassenberg is something like the integration helper.
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