The Interfax-Religion website has gained this information at the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (RFPS).
The Nizhny Novgorod Diocese together with the RFPS have implemented a new project aimed at creating a social refuge for released convicts in the Kstovo district, who do not have their places of residence and the workplace.
At first the private building, which was offered to the Nizhny Novgorod diocese by a Nizhny Novgorod resident, will be able to house approximately twenty former inmates, who do not have their places of residence and the workplace. Housing one hundred people is in prospect.
Clergymen will help the refugees find employment and the initial provision of food and clothes. Psychologists of the penal system will help the former prisoners adapt to the new life.
According to representatives of the RFPS, this project will not merely help the former convicts find a new path in their lives, but also become the first experience in creating such social refuges, and “will set an example for other concerned people”.
