PIOJ Symposium to Spotlight Rehabilitation and Reintegration for Community Development

The rehabilitation of ex-offenders and the reintegration of involuntarily returned migrants (IRM) will be the focus of the 10th staging of the Planning Institute of Jamaica’s (PIOJ) Best Practice Symposium on Social and Community Renewal.

The symposium, rescheduled from November 2025 due to the impact of Hurricane Melissa, will now be held on January 27 and 28 at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston under the theme ‘Reintegration for Sustainable Community Development: Bridging Gaps, Building Futures’.

It will feature presentations from a wide cross-section of local and international experts on the subject.

These include a keynote address on day one by Senior Research Fellow at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), University of the West Indies (UWI), Dr. Dacia L. Leslie; and Commissioner of Corrections, Brigadier (ret’d) Radgh Mason, highlighting Jamaica’s actions towards the rehabilitation of ex-offenders.

Speaking during a Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Think Tank’ on Monday (January 12), Technical Specialist for Socio-Economic Development in the Community Renewal Programme at the PIOJ, Charmaine Brimm, emphasised that reintegration and rehabilitation are critical to sustainable community renewal.

“We have [been seeing] a lot of residents [overseas] coming back home; so as a country, we have to prepare for that. We want to ensure that in our preparations for IRMs, we have effective systems and processes in place. We want to ensure that [these] persons are reintegrated properly so that they can continue viable livelihoods, being reconciled with families,” she said.

Ms. Brimm also noted that the symposium will feature a mini Local Economic Initiative (LEI) exposition showcasing local small businesses.

“We believe that the development of micro businesses at the community level is very important to the growth of not just the community but also the economy overall,” she stated.

The exposition of small businesses will be open to the public free of charge on Tuesday, January 27, from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and on Wednesday, January 28, from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

All presentations from the two-day event will be streamed live on the PIOJ YouTube channel (@ThePIOJ) and the PIOJ’s Instagram account.

The full agenda is available on the PIOJ website at www.pioj.gov.jm.