Prison gigs

Los Tres Rebeldes

The Director of Prisons Training in Dominican republic is Roberto Santana.

Roberto is a popular and extremely well known figure throughout the country as he also has a twice weekly current affairs TV show on national television.

One night Andy Ashcroft was sharing a bottle of wine with Roberto and discussing how to raise the profile of the prisons project. They both realised that they were musicians. Andy plays trumpet and piano, Roberto plays acoustic guitar and sings Dominican folk songs. After a number of glasses of wine they decided that the best way to raise the prisons profile was for them to to play a gig in the new Najayo women`s prison!

So the plan was born, a British Ambassador and the Dominican Republic Director prison training would play a gig to the prisoners !!!

Of course in the cold light of day, Andy and Roberta Santana, needed to work out exactly how this would work.

Our band needed a name and Roberto came up with the name of Los Tres Rebeldes, the three rebels. In his case this was particularly true as he had a number of brushes with the authorities regarding political issues when he was a young man. Indeed it is impossible to imagine a Director of Prison training having such high regard amongst the prisoners as that enjoyed by Roberto Santana.

prison gigs [cont]

Andy Ashcroft had arranged for British prisons experts, Dr Andrew Coyle [Director of the International Centre for Prison Studies and a world authority]and Nicholas Brooke[Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Caribbean prisons expert] to visit the Dominican Republic and provide advice to the Government. In June 2003 the Dominican Government began work on a serious prison reform programme.

New model prisons in Dominican Republic

The Dominican Government started to implement Dr Andrew Coyle's main recommmendation, the established of a professionally trained (to international/UN standards) independent prison service.

Four new "model prisons" were established under the new programme, with several more in the pipeline. The new women's prison was at Najayo, a few kilometres West of the country's capital, Santo Domingo. It was the second "new model" prison to be inaugurated in March 2005, with Andy Ashcroft the British Ambassador and Nicholas Brooke in attendance.

Najayo women`s prison had 202 inmates. Like the other new model prisons, it was a great success and had generated a very positive response from the inmates, who were provided with a daily programme of education and activities geared to rehabilitation.

These new prisons have showed very positive results in respect of a drastic reduction in those re-offending on release.

What songs do we play?

We wanted to create a list of songs that the prisoners would enjoy which is easier said than done when the audience was 95% spanish speaking. Andy conducted a poll of the dominican staff at the Embassy and he established that they knew the international artists such as Elton John, The Beatles and Elvis. We were also able to throw in some spanish language songs such as `La Bamba` and `El Viejo San Juan`.

dominican republic prison gig Roberto sang some dominican folk songs with great passion.

Below is the list of songs

  * Jailhouse Rock
  * Piano Man
  * El Viejo San Juan
  * Ain`t no sunshine
  * Giron Preludio
  * Let it be
  * Candle in the Wind
  * Brown Eyed Girl
  * House of the Rising Sun
  * Faith
  * Campanitas de Crystal
  * Tuttit Frutti
  * Stand by me
  * Hoy todo me parece mas bonito
  * Mustang Sally
  * I`m a believer
  * Delilah
  * La Bamba
  * American Pie
  * All my lovin