Streetmate

Glenn, our much loved Vocational Guidance Worker has given birth to a new website called 'Streetmate'. It's aimed at the single homeless person in London and gives news and advice around three key areas: Housing, Working and Learning.

We hope to get Glenn to write a few words in the near future, but until then - here's the link:

Time: The Great Healer

You wouldn’t expect to have a spiritual experience at half past seven on a Tuesday morning while going for the paper, would you? Well I did. It was nothing huge and there were no flashes of bright light or images of saints, there were no voices either, it was just a very personal, very freeing realisation that gave me an immediate sense of peace and more importantly a great barrel of hope, something I sometimes sorely lack.

I live above the Passage Day Centre in Montfort House; I’ve been there for nearly eighteen months in a bed-sit, prior to that I was at Passage House hostel and before that I was on the street and a regular at the very same day centre. It used to open at 7am back then but now it opens at eight. I’ve learnt a lot about the organisation, mainly because they’ve been my crutch while I’ve had to limp through part of my journey.

So this morning as I came back from buying my paper, the queue as usual was quite long with a varied group of homeless and vulnerable people lining up to get a hearty breakfast or a hot shower. I pass them most days and only once in while will I recognise someone from my time, someone who didn’t make it off the street or whose luck just never ran long enough to get back on their feet. It pains a little to see them, especially when they don’t acknowledge me, or sometimes can’t. But this morning it wasn’t a client I recognised, it was Lloyd, one of the project workers; He was marshalling the line and taking names for entry down stairs. Not a very remarkable happening as I have seen him doing this many times in the last year or so, this time though he beamed a huge smile at me as he returned my “Good Morning”. And that’s when it happened.

I suddenly remembered two and a half years ago, I was in the depths of despair, a broken, ill man living on the steps of the Cathedral and praying most nights not to wake up in the morning. It was a Saturday afternoon and there was a craft fair in the square, I was too ashamed to go anywhere near there and so I sat away, wrapped in my thick coat of self-pity and sadness. A car parked not far from me and a happy family came past on their way to the festivities, I recognised Lloyd immediately - as he did me. I merely nodded and said good afternoon to him, I must have looked wretched but it was nothing he hadn’t seen many times before, I’m sure. He paused as he passed me and he said the words which have now become manifest in my life, he placed faith in my future that afternoon and somehow I have nurtured it, I cannot deny the miracle because I am the proof of it, do you know what he said?

“You are going to be fine, just give it time and it’ll be alright.”

I smiled all the way back to my room this morning, you see Lloyd has seen through his promise - because with help I have given it time, I’m actually fine and things are all right. I just needed reminding.

Boyce Van Rensburg

Filling the Gap

A few months ago I was made redundant from my job in the city and had a stand down period in which I was not allowed to work. After getting over the initial shock I was left wondering what to do with my sudden influx of spare time, so after a holiday I thought about coming down to The Passage to do some volunteer work. I knew about The Passage having spent a community team works day here with my previous company and had really enjoyed it so I came down to see if there was anything I was able to help with.

I got in contact with Sarah Norwood via the website and then David Boulton, both of whom were very welcoming and extremely grateful. Thanks to their ruthless efficiency, before I knew it I was wearing a pair of yellow gloves and a rather fetching apron and was elbow deep in dish water!

In short I found the volunteer work in the day centre really rewarding. Tasks ranged from clearing and wiping tables, serving breakfast and lunch, washing dishes, operating the till, working in the clothing store and helping out with odd jobs in the kitchen. Often I’d stop for chats with the clients and was able to find out more about their diverse backgrounds. In general the clients were easy to talk to and seemed to really enjoy the interaction. It was mutual.

At the end of each day I would leave The Passage with a very unique sense of fulfilment and I was always in a buoyant mood at the end of it. It really felt great.

While I was doing a shift one morning I got chatting to Bev McGregor who asked me if I wanted to come upstairs to the Education, Training and Employment (ETE) department which helps clients to get back on their feet through aiding with CV preparation, setting up email addresses,Voicemail4all accounts and advice on employment.

For me, imparting general PC skills that most of us take for granted was really enjoyable. Helping clients get set up and back on their feet and seeing them go through interview processes and have some success was just brilliant. These were tangible results as a direct result of our help.

While I was there I attended a Business in the Community (BITC) open day where CEO's from various bluechip companies including Marks & Spencers and Clifford Chance were present to find out more about providing work experience opportunities for clients. Seeing the clients interact with prominent business leaders was great and hopefully we will see some positive results come out of these invaluable sessions.

I cannot talk about my experience at The Passage without mentioning all of the staff and volunteers. It is hard to find appropriate adjectives to describe the sense of welcome and camaraderie they put across. Each day I spent volunteering would fly by and chats would be about anything and everything, from learning about peoples varying backgrounds, to politics, to priesthood to footballer’s salaries! They are a collectively a very caring bunch and I was really touched to be told that I was being prayed for by the weekly prayer group that another job would come along!

I have since found another role now so I will be working in the city again and my time here will be less frequent. If you are contemplating doing some volunteer work I can’t speak highly enough of the enriching experience that can be gained.

My time here has given me a great sense of perspective along with a good dose of realism and has made me appreciate smaller things that are otherwise taken for granted. Many of the homeless are just like you or I but have just had a bad run of luck, so I would implore you to exercise a little philanthropy and get in touch with The Passage!

Haydn Scott

Poem on Drink

Just have a sip of the devil's juice
Mind fragments like a torn paper piece
Body organs cry where is my peace?
Lunacy prevails for all to see

Sore heads, fluids drained, money spent
Shun any attention because of stress
Alcohol has made you his servant
Wonder why you made a big mess

The juice creeps in your system
Addiction is inevitable
Antics of a madman, and its all mayhem.

by Tapiwa Zungunde

Frozen Silence

Is cold
Even very, very cold
I shuffle along the streets
Always shuffle
Nowhere
Without purpose
Hungry
Every day
Every night
Many years

I try to rest on the cardboard
But in winter
In frozen winter, is cold
Too cold
So I have to walk
Only I have nowhere to go
At night
Especially at night
All station
All shops
Bookshops
Libraries
Are closed

Dawn
The coldest time
I fell frozen
Seven o'clock
Is still far away
At this time
Passage will be open
Day centre for homeless people

Warm place and tea
Everyone waiting in the queue
Since five o'clock
Long queue
Of frozen people
Wrapped up
In sleeping bags
Blankets
Many clothes. Is cold
Even very, very cold
Everyone looks at the door
But 7 o'clock
Seems to be forever far away

30 minutes, 20'
Someone vomit behind me
Probably ate mouldy food
From the bin

15'

Is cold
Even very, very cold
Someone said
A big Scottich man dies last
Night
In the park
Police found him frozen
Itry to guess who he was
But homeless people are so
anonymous
We don't know too many names
Frozen silence
Who will be next?
Maybe I

KRZYSZTOF ORLOWSKI

This poem first appeared in 'Street Lights: The Voice of the Streets' (The Big Issue #780)
Republished with kind permission of the author and The Big Issue

Improving your English

Hello! My name is Sister Judith, a Daughter of Charity who works in The Passage as a volunteer. My background in teaching in a Infant School, then Secondary School and finally coaching overseas students. For the past three years I have been teaching English as a foreign language and also helping people who want to improve their language skills. Hopefully, this will help people who want to get back into work.

Language is all about communicating. The better the communication skills, the better the chances of finding and keeping a job. I have learned a lot by working in The Passage, both from the staff and from the clients. Actually, it was one of the clients who introduced me to the Cambridge University Press grammar books. He had bought one and was so enthusiastic that it changed my approach too. Another thing I have learned was that when people have problems, the very fact of finding a new interest and new friends helps them to work through the problems, or at least to bear them. Concentrating on the positive does the rest. This is how we work together.

I offer one-to-one tuition for a 45 minute lesson. The clients choose a time from 09.30 to 12.30 or 14.00 to 16.15. As other people use the room I am only able to offer three and a half days per week - all day Monday, Thursday and Friday, and afternoons on a Wednesday.

The tuition combines a three-fold approach; phonetics - the sounds of the language; vocabulary - the meaning; and grammar - how to use the language. I use a combination of all three and find the Cambridge University Press books very helpful. Over the last three years we have seen people of many nationalities; Czechs, Colombians, Congolese, Eritreans, French, German, Italian, Latvians, Lithuanians, Pakistani, Polish, Slovaks and many others. Over the past three years I have accumulated twelve foreign language dictionaries, and that still isn't always adequate!

British people also come to catch up on schooling they have missed or simply to improve their skills generally. Many of my present students come through The Passage for only a short time, others stay around for longer and if they attend the classes on a fairly regular basis we can achieve a good standard. What is on offer is tuition from very basic to advanced level, using a variety of material that is fun as well as challenging. I believe that we learn when we really want to, so I try to make the lessons enjoyable. There is a real partnership and even a friendship going on there.

Anyone who would like to take on this challenge can approach the Education, Training & Employment (ETE) team at The Passage and they will direct you to the classes.

Writes of Passage Goes Global!

Since the Writes of Passage moved online in, our readership has spread across the globe. Here is a map to show where people are reading The Writes of Passage. As you can see, we need to work on Russia, China and South America...

Imelda May

The Writes of Passage top tip for 2008 is Imelda May. Imelda played with her band at The Passage's client and volunteer Christmas parties and was kind enough to give us a copy of her superb latest CD 'Love Tattoo'.

Imelda and the band are currently on tour with Jools Holland, and also informed us she should could be doing a radio session on his Radio 2 show sometime this year.

Click here to hear tracks from her new album.

Links:

Imelda May (MySpace page)
Darrel Higham

Matt's Malawi visit excerpt

In October last year (2007) I had the priveledge to go to the village of Mchinji in Malawi to work with children who had rescued from trafficking. Below is some further information about the area and the project.

(image courtesy of G. Hodge (SAID))


Mchinji is a rural town in Malawi, 100kms from the capital Lilongwe and a short drive from the border with Zambia. Malawi has a beautiful landscape, mainly agricultural, with 85% of the population living on the land.

It is in this stark environment that families are preyed upon by human traffickers. Many of them probably don’t see themselves as that, but that is what they are. They see others, especially children, as a means to an end. They place little value on human life. Many of the children trafficked to this area are trafficked to work as herd boys or on the tobacco farms. They are lured with the promise of pay to their families after one year. A deposit is usually paid to the family to convince them of the promise – the average can be as little as 10 pence. It seems impossible to us to understand how families can be tricked in this way, but often they have never heard of trafficking, their poverty makes them vulnerable and therefore the offers they receive seem like a good opportunity.

The Salvation Army in Mchinji became aware of the problem of trafficking and of the urgent need to help affected children and, with the support of a local businessman, set up a centre to be a safe house for trafficked children. The project has been open for just over a year and provides counseling and support to help the children deal with the trauma of their circumstances, the eventual aim being that they can be reintegrated back into their own community.

For the full write up please click here.