Filled with love this Mid-Autumn, sending heartfelt greetings

The moonlight is like water, and longing is like the tide. To sympathize with inmates’ feelings of missing their loved ones during the Mid-Autumn Festival, Bade Minimum-Security Prison held a Mid-Autumn Festival telephone reunion event on September 12^th, 2024. The event aimed to help those who have fallen afoul of the law express their longing through phone calls, strengthen familial bonds, and reinforce family support, while igniting self-expectations and determination for reform. It encouraged inmates to bravely embark on a brighter path in the second half of their lives.

We are grateful to Chunghwa Telecom’s Taoyuan Operations Office for its public service spirit in providing 10 telephone lines free of charge, allowing the inmates to stay connected with their families. Through the phone calls, their distant longing transformed into boundless blessings that reached their loved ones. Throughout the event, inmates could be seen sending warm greetings to their family members through the phone, caring for elderly parents' health, and urging their children to study hard. The heartwarming atmosphere helped them temporarily forget the hardship of incarceration.

Inmate A-Wei (alias) shared his story: In his younger, more impulsive days, he got involved in gang activities and was convicted of multiple crimes. While serving his sentence, his mother passed away from cancer, and he was unable to be by her side to take care of her and fulfill his filial duties, something he deeply regrets. Upon returning home for the funeral, he made a silent promise to himself that he would do everything in his power to care for and accompany his family in the future. Though he is currently imprisoned and unable to fulfill his filial duties, which saddens him, the phone reunion event allowed his gloom to dissipate the moment the call connected. When his father asked him, “Are you keeping well?” a wave of warmth surged through his heart, and the love in those words eased his guilt and loneliness during the special holiday.

Warden Huang Hong-Xi expressed: “Family bonds are unbreakable. Through the telephone reunion event, we aim to ease the inmates' homesickness, comfort the concerns of their families, and strengthen the emotional connections between them. This also helps evoke gratitude and motivation for positive change in the inmates, aiding them in regaining their strength, reintegrating into society, and starting a new chapter in life.” A total of 163 inmates participated in the event, which concluded in a warm and heartfelt atmosphere as everyone exchanged well-wishes.