Calamities
The aim of Volontariat, as a humanitarian organization, and of its social workers, is to improve the present and work for the future of each person or family who approaches them in a distress condition. To reach this goal, solutions have to be found with the person or family, especially when children are involved.
Our constant concern, from the beginning, can be summed up in a few words:” Live today, while planning for tomorrow”. In addition, two words to describe good social work, even if they are sometimes overused: awareness programs and sustainable development. These are forms of the Solidarity that everyone must share if he feels himself in a better social position than others.
In many fields, like health, employment, integration into society, etc, individual initiatives are welcomed, but the support and the control of a group is essential for the sustainability of any plan or action, so Volontariat has favored the creation of Self help groups, specially for women. But it is a hard job to regroup people of Oupalam and neighborhood and to keep alive these groups which have a “natural” tendency to disappear due to “centrifugal forces”. Read the website on these subjects in News or Actualités.
Health: The programmes are focusing on preventive action, like improvement of hygiene, individual and collective, quality of food and water, cleanliness of toilets, awareness campaigns (information on sexuality, child abuse, alcoholism, sexually transmitted diseases, diseases transmitted by mosquitoes etc).
Employment: A regular income is an absolute need for the stability of any family, so the social workers try to help jobless individuals or families, through their contacts, through apprenticeship (Liege carpentry section, Uyarvu, electrical or cell phone courses) or by creating jobs in their production units (Atelier Shanti, Handicrafts).
Integration into Society of people left out:
due to their sickness/handicap: those cured of leprosy, the physically or mentally handicapped
due to being from a specific community: gypsies
due to their behavior: street children,
due to poverty and inability to work : aged people from the platforms
It is a long way to go and the war is never totally won. A solution adapted to each case is searched inside the organization Volontariat and outside: other NGOs, governmental or private institutions.
Housing: Volontariat is concerned with the living conditions of the poor families of Uppalam and the areas nearby, of its employees and the families of the sponsored children. Permanent houses replace more and more temporary huts which had a better thermal isolation, but with severe fire risk. See this site for the housing policy of Government and Volontariat
