President Oscar Timaru (second from left) inside the FPCS Yellow Ribbon tent.

The former president of French Polynesian Oscar Timaru on Monday (August 23) said that he was glad to know that Fiji had a robust rehabilitation programme the Yellow Ribbon Project.

The former head of state said that he was happy that he visited the Yellow Ribbon tent and managed to meet the inmates who were in the tent as performers for the Hibiscus Festival.

“I am glad that I came to the Yellow Ribbon tent and personally met the inmates.

“When I was mayor of Faa’a, we hired ex-offenders as well for I believe that they are also children of God.”

President Timaru visited the Yellow Ribbon with members of the Uto Ni Yalo for a brief chat, sing along and a cup of tea, where he met 32 inmates from the Fiji Prisons and Corrections Service.

The voyage of the Uto Ni Yalo is part of a joint effort by seven Pacific islands groups to preserve and develop their traditions of ocean voyaging in double-hulled canoes, according to the Fiji Voyaging Society which is co-ordinating the Uto Ni Yalo's voyage.

This followed an agreement reached in Auckland to form Pacific Voyagers, a pan-Pacific network of voyaging societies including voyaging groups in American Samoa, the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Tahiti, Tonga and Western Samoa.



www.corrections.org.fj