Help keep the Prisoner Correspondence Network running during the COVID-19 lockdown

It’s truly life-changing to be able to exchange news, art, and human friendship with someone. For people in New Zealand prisons, it can be a powerful source of hope and imagination. By connecting incarcerated people with the outside world, the Prisoner Correspondence Network (PCN) offers them a lifeline and a future.

Right now, PCN connects 276 penpals on the inside with 1300 people on the outside. During this time of national lockdown, prison visits have been shut down and people in prison are relying on mail and phone calls to keep in contact with the outside. Keeping PCN running is more important than ever, during this uncertain and stressful time.

Prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, we had 7 volunteers picking up mail, scanning it, and running the administrative side of PCN. With Alert Level 4, we can’t expect our volunteers to break lockdown conditions and pick up the mail.

For that reason, all the mail is now going to be redirected to one person, who will do all the scanning and uploading. We believe this to be too much work for one volunteer to complete under normal circumstances, so PCN’s governing body has decided to contract someone to do this work during the lockdown.

PCN is entirely funded by community donations and fundraising. To keep PCN running during lockdown, we’re fundraising the $1000 we need to pay for the contractor for 4 weeks. If the shutdown goes for longer than 4 weeks, we will fundraise further as needed.

In love and solidarity,

People Against Prisons Aotearoa

The Prisoner Correspondence Network is a project run by People Against Prisons Aotearoa