Pretoria: Correctional Services Department’s roll-out of Operation Hira in the Western Cape last week was an overwhelming success with more than 770 applications from qualifying professionals in the field of health, infrastructure and administration processed, the department said.

According to the department, the recruitment process will be completed within seven days.

The job fair, which aims to attract scarce and critical skills to correctional centres, has instilled hope in those who have ambitions of contributing towards rehabilitating offending behaviour.

The concept of Operation Hira was born during the 2015 Budget Vote Speech in which Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha pledged to expand the department’s capacity to deliver better and smarter services, by stepping up the recruitment of professionals to fill the high levels of vacancies in the scarce skills categories.

Sharing his excitement and appreciation about the speedy recruitment process, Heinrich De Kock, a 30-year old Masters degree graduate in Clinical Psychology who is currently doing community service at Brandvlei Correctional Centre, shared his passion for transforming other people’s lives.

He said although the job can look challenging from the outside, he was looking forward to joining the department on a full time basis to rebuild characters and to give hope to those who have stumbled.

Another hopeful candidate with a qualification in education emphasised the need for the department to intensify educational programmes for offenders and to also recruit more skilled professionals to empower offenders with the much needed knowledge that will pave a way to a better and crime-free life upon release.

The job fair will proceed to Bloemfontein City Hall in the Free State on 23-24 November 2015.

SOURCE: SOUTH AFRICAN OFFICAL NEWS