Well the New Year is well and truly over and I'm finally getting around to posting again. Had a bit of excitement there over the last few weeks when I got offered an administrative internship (unpaid) with the Dublin Simon Community. Had made up my mind that I was going to take it as I felt I needed a bit of a change only to find out that I wasn't eligible for it because I didn't fulfill all the requirements of the scheme which was called Job Bridge and was aimed at those unemployed for a period of 3 months or longer. The fact that I have been doing some substitute teaching in the meantime to keep the wolf from the door apparently invalidates me as it would mean I would need to start the whole process of 'eligibility' again and ensure that I do not work even one day of the 13 week minimum that I must stay 'unemployed'!
Crazy huh? In a way am slightly relieved though as I've gotten rather fond of the regular paycheck and wasn't looking forward to living on bread and butter which I definitely would have been if I had taken up the internship....Anyway, maybe it wasn't destined to be....In the meantime, I'm hoping to have some involvement with Dublin Simon in another capacity, perhaps it will have to be on a voluntary basis.
I digress.....
So I havent met any homeless people in the last few weeks and last night, without even trying, I came across 2! One guy was youngish, in his late teens or early 20s and was standing outside the International Bar with a paper cup asking passersby for money. Normally, I'm not a fan of this direct aproach, if anything I'm less inclined to give money but I'd just come out of a meditation class and guess I was feeling extra compassionate and in harmony with the universe as I stopped to chat to him and ended up giving him the contents of my wallet, which amounted to 5 euros. He was delighted with this and very appreciative and told me he was on his way to get a bus to Newbridge where he was staying in a hostel. He didn't need any encouragement to volunteer information and after telling me his name, told me that his brother had died some time ago and he hadn't taken it well and had 'gone on the drink' which resulted in him ending up homeless. Now he was sleeping in hostels, he had 'slept out' a few times in Dublin but wouldn't do it again and hoped that someday he would get a place of his own and would get to do "normal things" and be "just like everyone else."
After our brief chat, I walked on in the direction of my busstop and then spotted a guy on crutches trying to bed down for the night on some flattened out cardboard sheets in a doorway on Dame Street. The doorway was far too narrow for him and it was obvious he wasn't going to be able to fit so he came back onto the street and I stopped him. It transpired he was from Latvia and spoke very little English. I tried to talk to him but quickly realised that it was pretty futile given that he didn't understand a word I was saying. The best I could do for him was buy him a cup of tea and banana and I wrote down the name of Dublin Simon Community and Focus Ireland on a piece of paper for him and told him (via gestures and pointing) to go to them and see if they could help him.
I walked away thinking about how his situation highlighted the importance of learning the language of the country in which you live and how his inability to speak English was perhaps a large contributory factor to his being homeless ....wonder if any of the homeless agencies employ interpreters to deal with non national homeless people they come across....?
Crazy huh? In a way am slightly relieved though as I've gotten rather fond of the regular paycheck and wasn't looking forward to living on bread and butter which I definitely would have been if I had taken up the internship....Anyway, maybe it wasn't destined to be....In the meantime, I'm hoping to have some involvement with Dublin Simon in another capacity, perhaps it will have to be on a voluntary basis.
I digress.....
So I havent met any homeless people in the last few weeks and last night, without even trying, I came across 2! One guy was youngish, in his late teens or early 20s and was standing outside the International Bar with a paper cup asking passersby for money. Normally, I'm not a fan of this direct aproach, if anything I'm less inclined to give money but I'd just come out of a meditation class and guess I was feeling extra compassionate and in harmony with the universe as I stopped to chat to him and ended up giving him the contents of my wallet, which amounted to 5 euros. He was delighted with this and very appreciative and told me he was on his way to get a bus to Newbridge where he was staying in a hostel. He didn't need any encouragement to volunteer information and after telling me his name, told me that his brother had died some time ago and he hadn't taken it well and had 'gone on the drink' which resulted in him ending up homeless. Now he was sleeping in hostels, he had 'slept out' a few times in Dublin but wouldn't do it again and hoped that someday he would get a place of his own and would get to do "normal things" and be "just like everyone else."
After our brief chat, I walked on in the direction of my busstop and then spotted a guy on crutches trying to bed down for the night on some flattened out cardboard sheets in a doorway on Dame Street. The doorway was far too narrow for him and it was obvious he wasn't going to be able to fit so he came back onto the street and I stopped him. It transpired he was from Latvia and spoke very little English. I tried to talk to him but quickly realised that it was pretty futile given that he didn't understand a word I was saying. The best I could do for him was buy him a cup of tea and banana and I wrote down the name of Dublin Simon Community and Focus Ireland on a piece of paper for him and told him (via gestures and pointing) to go to them and see if they could help him.
I walked away thinking about how his situation highlighted the importance of learning the language of the country in which you live and how his inability to speak English was perhaps a large contributory factor to his being homeless ....wonder if any of the homeless agencies employ interpreters to deal with non national homeless people they come across....?
