Every morning, thousands of people wake up with a hope that increasingly
looks more blurred, more distant … Having a roof to live, the opportunity to shower with hot water, eat something decent … each day, adults and the elderly, rise up in the world to continue living their pain: to be homeless.
Homelessness can be the result of many problems, such as social inequality, domestic violence, forced displacement, drugs addiction, alcoholism, child abuse … This creates insecurity, pessimism and concern. The most affected are families with an unemployed member, then immigrants, single parents and finally children.
Fear of reliving traumatic situations, often causes the person refuse to try again to live working life and to remake a family and social relationships.
As a consequence, poverty brings many things with it: Illiteracy, deaths, drugs addiction, insecurity, robberies, among others. The age range is very high, from 5 years old children to approximately 85 years old.
Apart from this, indigence carries many risks for themselves. Every five days, one person is expected to die. The reasons may be hypothermia, famine, disease, assaults…
How do we see this? In my opinion, it looks like a social problem, difficult to solve. We know it exists, but nothing is done to prevent it. Many times we blame the wrong person, they are judged as drug addicts, we think that they would have done something to be there, but we are wrong. The real evil comes from the state that deprives them of rights and they are not given all the necessary help.
The solutions to this problem are several. We can separate them into what we citizens can do, and what the state can do. Based on the first, citizens can begin to approach and simply ask that if they need something and not to look away from them. Also, you can fight for your rights; remind the authorities that we all have a right to housing and dignity.
The state can start by being more involved in this problem. It could create day centers, where on winter days they can take refuge, making any cultural activity, support or conditioning some space where they can sleep.
I know that it is not easy, we all have our own life, our own problems… but sometimes we can think about the others, a small gesture is enough, a simple look or “Hello” can make a better day for them. They will fell they are alive, that are still part of society and you will win a smile and maybe an interesting story.
Miriam
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Projekti prostovoljstva v okviru Evropske solidarnostne enote mladim nudijo priložnosti za prostovoljsko delo. Odgovarjati morajo na pomembne potrebe družbe, prispevati h krepitvi skupnosti in ob tem prostovoljcem omogočati, da pridobivajo uporabne izkušnje, veščine in kompetence za svoj osebni, izobraževalni, socialni, državljanski in profesionalni razvoj, s čimer se izboljšuje njihova zaposljivost.
Več o programu Evropske solidarnostne enote (slo. ESE, ang. ESC, bivši EVS) si lahko preberete na povezavi: http://www.movit.si/ese/projekti-prostovoljstva/
