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The Crisis Christmas Blog

Meeting the challenge of transforming commercial buildings into havens of respect, warmth and energy can never be underestimated, this year Crisis is engaging a team of young homeless people to create somewhere they would like to spend Christmas.

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Friday Jan 25, 2008

Looking back and the future

Members of the Crisis Youth Volunteering Programme took some time last week to interview each other about how the project went and what they hope to happen in the future. Here's the audio of those interviews - Crisis mp3

(Right click and save the file or just click it to listen to the interviews through your browser. The file is 5 MB and lasts for 9.07)

Posted by Team ( 3:15 PM )
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Thursday Jan 10, 2008

Helping others in my situation

Hello my name is Simon, I’m 22 years old. I got involved in the project to help people who are in a similar position to where I was about a year ago. We did various things such as painting and decorating, cleaning, lifting and refurbishing.

There was a lot of good things, I enjoyed the painting and being in a work environment. The only bad thing, which wasn’t really bad was lifting heavy tables and moving over 100 chairs. I'm not sure if I will do it again but if the chance comes, I definitely will.

Posted by Team ( 9:38 AM )
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Friday Jan 04, 2008

A message home

Hello and a Happy New Year and I hope everyone’s Christmas was cool. I wanted to get involved in decorating the site, as this gave me experience for getting a job in the future. Doing the carpet and painting was perfect. After being involved in setting up the centres, I spent a couple of days there. It was lovely and I met very kind people who helped me to sort out my problems. They let me phone my family back in Ethiopia, it made me very happy being able to talk to my mum, dad and little sister. I also got involved in the activities at the centre and enjoyed the painting. I would like to be involved next year because the project and people are very nice.

Tesfaye.

Posted by Team ( 11:45 AM )
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Discovering charity work

I’ve never been involved in charity work or anything similar as fate would have it I became homeless. At the time it was just heart wrenching but as they say ‘sometimes blessings come disguised’. From being homeless I became aware of Crisis and the work they do for people afflicted and affected by destitution. After a few conversations with a friend of mine (Brian, also on this project) I realised that life’s many wrongs and injustices were not exclusive to me, so as per his advice I decided to take a proactive approach.

I found helping with the centres very fulfilling, it gave me a real sense of achievement from contributing to make someone’s Christmas a bit more enjoyable. I personally feel it is a lot more rewarding to help the less fortunate as it means a lot more to them.

The services provided were ideal for people in this situation because, speaking as a homeless person they facilitated the transition to a better life. Homeless people do not want handouts and freebies just a way to work their way out of dependency. So the provision of services such as housing advice, job hunting facilities and further education were definitely ideal in my opinion.

What I wasn’t too sure about was the wet centres, I feel that these give off the wrong impression as they appear to accept drinking as being OK. I also think that allowing drinking at some of the centres enabled people to be unruly and disruptive instead of getting out of the rut they are in.

I would like to be involved in the project next year as I think I will be in a position to affect some change, the way I see it is I cannot help the homeless if I am one of them so I have to be housed and settled and then give back, to me, that’s the win.

I did not stay at the centres but I went to two of them to see them functioning and to see and greet some mates. I thought they were run exceptionally well, when you think about the numbers involved, I think everyone involved in the organisation and execution of the event did smashingly well.

By Jamaal

Posted by Team ( 11:44 AM )
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Happy New Year

Hello and welcome to a brand new year. I hope everyone’s Christmas went well.

Its been a couple of weeks since I wrote last for which I do apologies but I have been awfully busy with the Crisis Open Christmas project. So I thought I should let you know how it went over the festive period at the centres. As you already know I was involved in the set-up of these centres. It was a hectice schedule but we got there in the end. Although plans kept getting changed which was annoying and staying calm was key. But by all pulling together the impossible was achieved.

Once the set up was done, it was time to start welcoming the guests. I had the fantastic but hard job of working in the kitchens. Seeing the guests enjoying the food and the space was a joy to watch and also made me feel good knowing that I played such a huge part in a lot of people having a good Christmas, which gave me a buzz and a sense of achievement. It was a great experience and I can’t wait to do it all again next year.

Brian

Posted by Team ( 11:41 AM )
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Wednesday Jan 02, 2008

Fundraising efforts

Some of us were involved in a fundraising event to make sure that enough money was available for this project - Crisis Open Christmas.

Posted by Team ( 1:28 PM )
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Christmas Collage

Here's two of the collages created by our team. The creation of these followed a discussion regarding negative portrayal of homeless people in the media, we decided to find positive words from newspapers and use these to 'paint' a more positive picture. These collages were then displayed in the centres.

Posted by Team ( 1:22 PM )
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Photo diary part 7

Decorating to the next level...

Posted by Team ( 1:18 PM )
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Wednesday Dec 19, 2007

Christmas reflections

The end of yet another year is upon us so quickly again, its incredible the way that time literally seems to fly. It's supposed to be a time to be merry and jolly but sometimes things are never what they should be, it's with this in mind I would like you to take a moment to think of those less fortunate than ourselves. It would be very easy to simply turn and look the other way, but if we were to open our minds and look at homelessness and the less fortunate it would release us from all the inhibitions that bind us in life. I only say this because I have seen it with my own eyes the ‘I’m not bothered’ mentality that has engrossed mankind, I speak out of personal experience, experience, I used to live in this exact manner till I got a second chance, I became homeless. HOMELESS! I hear you echoing back, yes being homeless freed me from all the material wishes and trivial little things I fantasised about, I realised that in the greater aspect of life, they count for absolutely nothing. So at this time of year I urge you to think of the less unfortunate.

Jamaal

Posted by Team ( 2:27 PM )
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Tuesday Dec 18, 2007

Photo diary part 6

The furniture is starting to arrive.

Posted by Team ( 2:48 PM )
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Update from Abisoye

Hello, this is Abisoye, today we all went to the Christmas centre for the homeless to help finish the floor by putting tiles on the floor, It was very fun working as part of a team, everyone was very supportive towards each other although not all of the team members turn up but we still managed to finish off the work. Tomorrow we will be doing more, although we are running out of time due to the fact that we have until 23^rd December to finish what ever we have to do in the centre so it can be available for the homeless for Christmas.

Posted by Team ( 1:52 PM )
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Monday Dec 17, 2007

Photo diary part 5

The team are getting stuck in with the decorating.

Posted by Team ( 1:34 PM )
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Staying alive

My name is Tesfaye, im 22 years old. I became homeless because my family wanted to move to France, I wanted to stay in London and as there was no one to look after me I started to live on my own on the streets. Being homeless makes it very difficult to stay alive, at the moment its very cold and I keep on getting in to trouble with the police.

I got involved with the Crisis project to meet new friends and so I could possibly get a job in the future. If I get the chance I know I can change something.

The thing I like most about this project is the people who work with me they are very kind and the place is a very cool atmosphere I also like the way they help me.

I want to go back to college and finish my course in painting and decorating, I had to stop this because if housing problems. This project is going to give me work experience.

Posted by Team ( 1:25 PM )
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Friday Dec 14, 2007