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.

Matt's video from Malawi

Matt has received some photos and music from his visit to Malawi (click here for original blog),

Turn your speakers up, sit back and enjoy!

Courtesy of SAID

Pilgrimage to Santiago De Compostela

31 August ~
14 September 2007

by Padraig Regan, CM

Click HERE to read Padraig's journal.


"The Camino pilgrimage had attracted me for more than ten years. I was looking for an opportunity to take this 1000-year pilgrim path. I was also looking for a congenial companion who would make the pilgrimage by bicycle (I have an injured ankle). I found my man in Paddy Walsh and we were to celebrate our 49th anniversary of our meeting (3 Sep 1958 the evening we joined the Vincentian Community) on the Camino. Paddy’s family made me a present of a splendid new bicycle to substitute for the one – a sprinter and a banger, and not a long-distance candidate - I have used for almost fifteen years in London. No one bothers to steal it."

Further reading:

The Way of St. James (Wikipedia)
The Confraternity of Saint James