Simply Responsible BY MATTHEW BENTHAM

Community Service Volunteers, CSV Environment, is one of the placements of Birmingham volunteer Matthew Bentham. Matthew is engaged in a range of activities taking the role of a teaching assistant involved in outdoor education with school pupils of all ages. His work can include teaching, arts and crafts, bushcraft skills, and gardening.

Below Matthew offers his recent reflections on our responsibilities to the wider environment.

The profound moments of my day-to-day life occur most often when I am outdoors. The natural environment is my spiritual haven. As such working for CSV Environment I live out some of my lifestyle aspirations and those of JVC.

The outdoor educational work with young people at CSV aims to improve access to local green spaces and to encourage a greater respect towards the wider natural environment.

Many of the young people I work with are from deprived areas of Birmingham and often their local parks are unclean and unsafe. This is a social injustice because any child who cannot freely and safely access the outdoors has a poor quality of life.

When passing polluted streams and canals in the city I reflect on our current culture and lifestyles. Lifestyles that are materialistic, that put the individual first, and are driven by greed to instant gratification by means of mass consumption. Consumption in which the worst consequences are so removed from us, both in temporal and spatial scales, that we never truly realize the damage we cause. Damage that affects the poor the most as they are the least able to cope and the least able to speak up for themselves, spreading more social injustice.

When the negative impacts of our lifestyles extend to a global scale should not our responsibilities also extend to a global scale?

The simple lifestyle provides an answer. The simple lifestyle rejects the material to focus on the spiritual and to have solidarity with the poor. However it also benefits those unseen peoples, flora and fauna suffering the consequences of excessive consumption.

Widening our sense of responsibility to such a degree is difficult. However within the environmental movement such a change was spurred by the first images of the earth from space. Images that expose our fragility and insignificance, but also our unity. When being mindful of our wider responsibilities to the world’s environment, all peoples and all life it is helpful to remember that we are all of the same community, united in our insignificance, vulnerability and rarity.

In the creation myth all life made prior to man was deemed “Good” independent of any services it could offer to man. Past interpretations of our responsibilities to the wider environment being only of domination, conquest and superiority should be challenged.

To deny our wider responsibility to the wider environment is to deny that we are all interconnected and interdependent on each other as well as those natural systems, flora and fauna, around us. To deny any responsibility to the environment is to acknowledge that it exists only to serve us. To believe that is to submit willingly to greed.

If in working with young people they connect with their natural environment on a deeper level, acknowledging an intrinsic value of nature independent of the services provided to mankind, then maybe we can circumvent that greed and all its consequences.

Summer Programme 2008

This summer JVC welcomed Goda Venckaityte,  Jacques St Laurent, Eurelija Venskaityte and Kinga Kovacs to volunteer with homeless people and refugees in Manchester.

Kinga shares some of her thoughts on the programme…

I am not just happy but very grateful I could take part in both projects: the Rainbow Haven and the Cornerstone. I never faced what in reality means to be an asylum seeker. When I got to know that I was going to work with them I had to look the word up in my dictionary, I didn’t know what it meant. During this month I learnt so much about them, their lives, their feelings and fates, the process they have to go through ….I think I woke up to reality this summer! I thought England was the lords’ field, the home of castles, green grass, good-manner and wealth. Now I faced totally another face of the country. I am really pleased, I learnt there a lot about myself as well facing so much cruelty that people suffer near me.

Cornerstone also taught lots of things to me, I learnt forever: “Look at the person not to the problem”.

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Jesuit Volunteer Community BY GED EDWARDS

JVC recently held it’s 21st Birthday party in St Frances Xavier Church Liverpool, everyone agreed it was a lovely evening. Ged Edwards gave this speech, looking back at the first JVC community.

I’m delighted to be asked to speak tonight.  It’s a real privilege to be here on such an occasion, an occasion we could barely dream off 21 years ago.  I’ve always felt that JVC is a movement, not a voluntary organisation and our collective presence here tonight shows how true that is.

Lest we forget where we’ve come from, JVC was Jesuit Volunteer Corps and started in Alaska about 50 years ago.  Eddy Bermingham SJ was asked by The Society of Jesus, the Jesuits to set up JVC: Britain.  To do this in 1985 he approached 2 students Tess Clancy and Sue Hogg to go to the States to experience JVC programme there and to come back and after a short while take on the running of JVC: Britain which he started to shape in their absence.  While Eddy was recruiting the first community, building links with Community Service Volunteers and the Housing Department in Liverpool, Tess and Sue were in California and Montana.  At 21, Tess ran a soup kitchen for up to 600 homeless people a day in Sacramento which was part of the Loaves and Fishes Project inspired by Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement so she’s the longest-standing volunteer with us tonight.

Last September, twenty years after its formation of the first JVC: Britain community JVC Liverpool (or JVC Rialto as we knew it), we held a reunion attended by five of the first six JVC volunteers (Jo Sullivan, David Cronin, Ann Wilson, Patrick Sweeney and me), and Tess Clancy and Ken Vance from the Management Team and Sr Liz Stinson SND: Community Partner, four of us are here tonight.

We had a great day wandering around the European Capital of Culture.  We knew a different culture back then in Toxteth where we had lived for the year.  In 1987, the area was still struggling with the label of the infamous Toxteth riots of 1981 and burnt buildings and dereliction were to be seen everywhere.  We lived in two dilapidated maisonettes in Berkeley St which we had to decorate (after taking down the red light bulbs!) and hurriedly furnish with furniture from a flat where someone had done a moonlight flit.  In our JVC year our work took us away from Toxteth but we tried hard to support the local community and be accepted there too.  One of our community, Steve Jobling was a brilliant magician and the local kids a keen audience so that for the years the Liverpool community was based in Berkeley St, they were all known as “The Magies”.  We helped in the Toxteth Carnival in our year and when some children tried to break into the flat when we were away on the Spirituality Weekend, people we didn’t know came and boarded the place up late at night and thrashed the culprits.  We were in!

When we got to the area last September, it had changed so much.  Both blocks of flats, which had been so liberally decorated with graffiti, had been pulled down and new, smart terraces put in their place, and other houses given a facelift.  It was a great physical improvement but the memories of being there, in a place I thought of as so much as home, were still so powerful and I was glad we were together to experience it.

Then off to Liz’s for prayerful reflection.  We looked at the four JVC values of simplicity, community, spirituality (Ignatian) and social justice, where they had influenced us over the years and what they meant for us now.  We took time to reflect also on the JVC USA strap line “Ruined For Life”.  After all that time. were we?

We noted how the values were continuing to shape little things – like running the office tea fund – as well as having shaped major choices, like careers in health, social and environmental work.  The friendships we had had remained vitally important.  Some of us were ruined in terms of personal relationship: the quality of those relationships, people who had been complete strangers, had been so strong and now we badly missed community living and contact with like-minded people as we had spilt up over the UK and this was hard to come by.  Community is such a powerful, natural and necessary experience it will be rediscovered and JVC is part of that effort.  Where God is leading us is alive for us still and all of us are still strongly drawn to Ignatian spirituality with its foundation of contemplation in action.

Simple lifestyle had become more of an issue for some with environmental issues coming to the fore.  How can we live more simply and share what we have with others?  What are the benefits of this?  In terms of social justice, for most of us dealing with systems and bureaucracies rather than just with the people we signed up to help was causing us to scratch our heads.  We were being paid as professionals and we welcomed that for the most part.  But was this helping others as well as it might – or ourselves?  Again, the simplicity of being in touch with others as volunteers, running soup kitchens, cooking with someone who lives in a hostel or playing the piano in an old people’s home brought back vivid memories of individuals we had formed bonds with.

JVC: Britain started amid a blaze of interest from the Society which was exploring in particular how its charism of Ignatian spirituality could be used with lay people.  During the year we were visited by many people most notably by the then Provincial, Michael Campbell-Johnston SJ and by Alec Dixon, the founder of Community Service Volunteers who had advised President Kennedy on establishing the American Peace Corps who stayed overnight with us.  For us as the first volunteers, staff and support staff, for all the challenges, there was a sense of a great adventure, both personally and as a movement.  We were open to experiencing first hand something of the need for social justice, of the vitality and difficulties of living in community with people we had not met before, of living with the strengths and limitations of few choices and of finding God amidst this, individually and together.  For all of us, 1987-88 remains both a rich and influential period, a touchstone and influence for today and the future.  Eddy’s phrase to us was, “It’s not about getting the right answers but the right questions!”  That’s all part of being ruined for life – in theological terms, being dead to the world and truly alive for God’s work, building a fairer more compassionate kingdom here, now.

Jesuit influence

The Jesuits have always used their limited resources to influence the social fabric by helping people to find God in all things and, because of their courage and approach, that influence has been phenomenal.  The BBC is currently running the 2008 Reith lectures on China and has highlighted the Society’s work, in the shape of Matteo Ricci SJ in 1580, as the first westerners to enter China.  Their impact there and China’s interest in the West because of that is still being felt today.  St Francis Xavier had the same goals when he went to India.  Here in this Church named after him, Bro Ken Vance SJ and the team are seeking to influence modern Liverpool and are hosting as well a special exhibition next month Held in Trust  on the work of the Society in the UK to influence the Capital of Culture.

And the Society is hosting tonight’s celebration as it has so generously supported JVC for 21 years financially and with its Jesuit members in spiritual development particularly.  Why?

It does this because it wants every volunteer, to do what Ricci and Xavier tried to do.  To go into the places where people are excluded from Jesus’ message, to learn from them and live along side them to change the world for the better.  I personally want to thank Fr Michael on behalf of his predecessors and the rest of the Society for continuing to ruin my former conventional life and help to make me part of the Jesuit movement.  I’m sure many of us who have gone through JVC feel the same.  The challenge we took up continues – but God doesn’t leave us alone.  It’s God’s work we are about to make a fairer Britain, where personal relationships are valued and not cheapened, where spirituality is respected as part of the whole compass of human experience and where people are encouraged to see the wisdom and joy in simplicity in a world teetering to the edge of catastrophe through consumerism-led climate change.

On behalf of my Rialto community, thanks for listening and staying ruined!

Ged Edwards was one of the first JVC volunteers in JVC Rialto 1987-88 in Liverpool.

European Volunteer Meeting BY AUSTEJA MOCKEVICIUTE

The European JVC volunteer meeting, “Discover strength and unity through diversity” was held in May 2008. JVC volunteers from Ireland, Germany, Great Britain, Slovakia, France and young people from Lithuania gathered in Vilnius (Lithuania) to share their experiences on social inclusion activities carried out in different parts of Europe, working with marginalised people and helping those who come from very diverse backgrounds.

Volunteers could discuss and analyse high unemployment rates, a decrease of equality of opportunity in education and employment in many countries, marginalisation, social exclusion and discrimination for many people who have skills but not opportunities and access to use them and feel fully-fledged members of the society they live in. Jesuit volunteers during the meeting could share examples of their work trying to make poor people’s voice heard and to advocate their interests. Volunteers try to engage more with society and become a bridge between those who are voiceless and those who have got power to make decisions affecting the lives of others. Volunteers shared ideas on how to stimulate people on the margins to engage more in society.

Each group prepared a presentation of social inclusion models used in their country and their placement. Those presentations had one issue in common – people from different backgrounds can be welcomed and accepted by non governmental and charitable organisations better then the formal institutions, which deal more with problems, forgetting about the person and his/her dignity.

The seminar activities brought about an understanding that social inclusion is achieved when all members of society can acknowledge, accept and implement their civil rights and duties, something significantly influenced by equal access to opportunity.

In diverse societies like the UK, France, Germany equal opportunities can be secured by activities based on principles of solidarity striving for successful integration into society through education, personal development and employment. Most people JVC volunteers work with have found it difficult to integrate into society, especially into formal systems, therefore synthesis of non-formal education and social services often is the key to successful integration, mentoring people with low self esteem and supporting them to discover their strength and engage it into positive activities.

The JVC volunteer meeting has broadened the understanding of social inclusion not just in the cities or countries represented but in wider Europe. The meeting was financed by Youth in Action Programme which is operated by the European Commission and aims to inspire a sense of active citizenship, solidarity and tolerance among young Europeans and to involve them in shaping our future.

Austeja Mockeviciute is a volunteer coordinator at JVC and a former volunteer; she comes from the lovely city of Vilnius in Lithuania

Circles of thought by JOANNA LEWIS

One of the things we talked about at the Social Justice residential in February was some of the theology of justice. In fact, we didn’t just discuss theology, we did it – thrashed it out together, beginning with our experience, aiming for a change in unjust situations, and using the pastoral cycle as our map (ably guided by Marie). The pastoral cycle is a tool for thinking about justice in the light of our faith, and for trying to achieve a balance of reflection and action which is relevant to the situation because it is grounded in experience.

We began by sharing situations from our placements, learning about some of each others’ experiences and the thoughts they had provoked. The aim of this first stage of the cycle is to ensure that everything which follows has its foundations in reality and its feet firmly on the ground. We talked about homeless people, disabled people, church people, displaced people. We told real, concrete stories about the things we had seen and compared notes about how we felt about them.

The next stage is analysis. We asked who loses out in the situations which bothered us, who gains from them and why they continue. Unless we understand how it comes about, it will be difficult to challenge oppression. The questions we asked were a way to start to understand how our lives affect the lives of others, and how the structures of our society affect the people at the edges of it. One of the things which came up was the level of misinformation and ignorance about some marginalised groups of people. The media creates and fosters unhelpful public attitudes towards, for example, asylum seekers and refugees, and this is combined with prejudice to result in a lack of awareness and a fear of the unknown and not-understood. Then there is laziness and indifference – it is often easier to let an unjust situation continue than to think about how it should and could be changed, and so disabled people continue to be treated as children because society is unwilling to wrestle with its own preconceptions. Or perhaps it is easier to meet someone’s short-term needs than to think about what would help them in the long run, so people who find it difficult to remain in conventional accommodation are given handouts instead of the support and acceptance of their abilities which they need. Sometimes an issue may not even be seen as a problem, or not one interesting to those who could make the greatest changes. Elections are not won on issues which affect minority groups. And finally, there may be vested interests in keeping people marginalised.

Having made an attempt to understand the problems we had seen, we asked what our faith has to say about them. Of course we should not try to restrict God’s place, which is in everything we try to do, to this point, but this is the place for listening, prayer and reflection on scripture, particularly from the point of view of the marginalised, to see what insights we gain. Two strands came out of this stage of the process. One theme was anger: the causes we had identified in our analysis were the things which made Jesus angry; the things he spoke out against. And just as Jesus was often angry with the religious authorities of his day, we talked about anger at a church which allows itself to be comfortable with the situation, failing to challenge injustice and refusing to preach on poverty. The other theme we identified was compassion. That morning we had been led in some thoughts on Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman by the well, and we noted that he asks her to do something for him. We felt it was fundamental to recognise people’s worth and to let them know that they are loved and accepted. It is also important to see that really helping people is not the same as helping them to conform, and look outwardly “normal”.

The final stage of the cycle is action: what needs to happen in the situations which we have identified, and what can we personally do? What sticks in my mind from this phase is the thought that “the powerful don’t know what it’s like to be poor and the poor don’t speak the language of power”. One of the things we can do, then, is to bridge that gap: to tell stories of our experiences to others, especially to those in power, and to challenge people’s attitudes with love and respect. Even to suggest that social justice should form part of the school curriculum. In our own lives we thought it was important to be aware of which are our wants and which our needs and of what money means, and important to keep integrity, even when it is difficult or goes against the grain – to “jump over our own shadows”. As always to pray, and to become more aware of unjust situations in the world now and in the past by studying history and current affairs.

Because we’ve chosen a cyclical tool for thinking about injustice, action isn’t, in fact, the final stage. There is no final stage to the process. We will, if we carry them out, be able to evaluate our actions – the good points, the bad points and the lessons learned – and celebrate the results. We will finish the action stage with a whole new set of experiences to feed into the next round of the cycle, so that it is not just “going round in circles”, but moving outwards in a spiral as each revolution builds on and adds to the last.

This discussion took place at the social justice residential in February. Jo volunteered to write it up for us which she has done wonderfully but she has to share the credit with everyone for all the brilliant insights they brought to the discussion.

Social Justice Residential

The social justice residential took place in Feburary at St Buenos in Wales.
There was time to go for walks in the countryside…

We explained our placements using a toy box…

…and bits of paper.

Reflected in the art room

Worshiped together

and stayed up late chatting

Coming Clean Interview by DONNA MCBRIDE

“Anne”, a woman overcoming drug addiction, talks about her experience, recovery and plans for a new life.
“People want someone to blame and famous people make it easy, people like Kate Moss, and Pete Doherty, influencing teenagers, but it’s bull, if you want to do it you’re going to do it. Every person in this world that uses drugs be it cigarettes, cannabis, cocaine, speed, alcohol, anything, they will do it because they choose to. But you can’t dabble. No. You always want it if you’ve tried it. You might think you can dabble – kid yourself – but you start to do it more and more, until its day and night. You’re always chasing that first high, and you’ll never get it.

“I wouldn’t say there is more information available about drugs, I’d say there’s more bullshit available about drugs. Nothing in those little books they hand out will actually tell you what it’s like. Is it written by someone that’s been through it? Tasted it? And as for kids, they aren’t interested in reading leaflets. When someone comes up and gives me a leaflet it goes in the bin. To get these kids you’d need a bad ass boy documentary film to show them what’s going on in this world.”
Volunteering in a centre for vulnerable females, I have had the privilege of meeting women with more sincerity that I’ve ever seen in people before. Each with remarkable stories, It has shown me what it means to have strength and belief in yourself, despite how the rest of the world may treat you.
Anne made the choice to break free from her debilitating addiction to crack cocaine four months ago. She is step by step reclaiming her life. This social justice edition of Holy Joe has provided an ideal space for Anne to speak of her experiences, voice the injustices she has faced and tell her story in her own words. Naturally, after all this talking, Anne had worked up an appetite so she was treated to a well-deserved pub lunch. Not having been out for a meal in two and a half years, Anne was delighted and full of gratitude.
Childhood….
“Growing up was good, I had a lot of fun, I’ve got a lot of good memories. I had a good mother and a good father.
“I met my boyfriend and we ran away together when we were young teenagers because we loved each other and my dad was not allowing me to go with this lad, he was really strict and he wanted me to concentrate on my work in school.
“We were rouges together, shop lifting for food, we looked after each other. We travelled in a long distance lorry. You don’t realise the dangers at that age. When I see runaway kids on the TV now it takes me back. Back then, it wasn’t safe, but it was a hell of a lot safer than it is now. Me being a teenage runaway now, I wouldn’t have a chance on this earth without someone introducing me into drugs and prostitution.”

Love and marriage…
“Up to my late twenties I had a great time. We were sleeping rough in the back of an old pub, but I was happy. I got pregnant with my first daughter and he said ‘lets get married’ so we did. I was definitely happy, don’t get me wrong, we had our hiccups but things were good.
“My husband picked up a really bad gambling habit and we didn’t have any money with kids to feed. I’d been seeing my mum and dad again and they were giving me money, but I ended up having to leave him. I went through hell for a good eighteen months.
“I moved into a flat with my kids and a knock came on the door at about quarter to twelve one night. When I opened the door it was the police. They were asked me if I knew my husband, I said ‘yeah what’s he done?.’ They told me he was dead. It was then I realised how much I loved him, we’d had kids together, he was my best friend.”

Introduction to drugs…
“Six months after my husband had died, I was at a low stage and social services were brought in. I wasn’t eating and depression had set in hard. I wasn’t acting like the mother I had been. A friend, well who I thought was a friend, introduced me to this guy that I fell for. He took me out, showed me a real good time, bought me stuff, I was swept off my feet and loved all this attention. He told me he wanted to take me away to a place, a small village, it was remote, you could take someone there if you wanted to get inside their head. He took me there for a fortnight. That was it. I came back a junkie. He had some friends there one night and they were smoking crack cocaine. They were trying to give it to me and I said no at first, but I gave in, I was powerless. When I first tried it, wow, it was magnificent, couldn’t talk couldn’t think. When we got back I found out that he had women working in prostitution, in houses and saunas, paying them in drugs. I managed to get away from him, he beat me up and I went to the police, I got away from him, but the damage had been done.”

Addiction…
“I’d only had crack that once, and didn’t have it for another two years after, but I wanted it the whole time. That one time, was enough, it had changed me.
“I was at a friends house two years later, and I couldn’t believe it. I saw her with the can, smoking crack. I never knew she was into it, I told her I’d had it before so she gave me some. I loved it, loved it, I got that wow again that I’d had 2 years ago, my head was thumping, my heart was racing. I felt like the inside of me was going to turn inside out. It was a great feeling.
“I never had any money, I spent all my benefits on crack I wanted it so bad. My parents stepped in and took my kids off me.
“I was around a lot of people doing crack, going to all these different houses to score. But we never had any money, all our money went on the drugs. My friend said to me one day ‘I know how we can get some cash’. She took me to a place where we met this guy and she told me that he would give me fifty quid if I had sex with him. I said no way, but this guy went up to a hundred and fifty quid. I couldn’t believe it. I did it. I wanted the money. It all went on crack. From then on, basically, I was doing crack cocaine day and night. I’d lost my home, I’d lost my kids.
“My mum took really ill and it felt like my world was ending. When she was dying, she told me to promise I would stop taking drugs. But its hard, it’s hard to stop. It took until years later when I was still involved in prostitution, starving, I looked anorexic, and homeless. I was rushed into hospital. I thought I was going to die. Its not good, drugs have taken my life, it’s not good, I’d tell anyone that, its not worth it, they make you feel lovely, but it doesn’t last. Drugs take your life. Crack is the devils’ work. If someone shows you it, walk away from it.
“Over those years I didn’t see my family, or any old friends or anyone I could trust. I met some of the workers from this centre out on the street but I wasn’t ready to accept the help that was really there. It’s only since last year that I’ve realised that this centre has got so much going for it and it really can help you but you’ve got to want to take the help. You’ve got to want to do it, because just saying I’m going to come off drugs isn’t enough.”

Crack and Heroine…
“I was around heroine users and that was a different cycle all together. People say never trust anyone who is on drugs, but if you ask people on crack cocaine, that only take crack cocaine ‘what are heroine users like?’ they’ll say ‘don’t fuckin trust ´em’. Crack cocaine users do not trust heroine users, they think they’re the worst people you could know or get to know. Even if they pinch your box of matches they’ve got to pinch something from you.
“I’ve never done heroine and I feel sorry for people that have, they have no life. With crack you’ve got some form of get up and go, the addiction feels more psychological but with heroine, it’s a drug that takes you over, totally takes you over, to a point where you can’t even pick your head in the morning without needing it straight away.”

Drug Trade….
“Dealers. They’d follow you, bully you, and come up saying ‘how come you ain’t been phoning me?’ They expect you to phone them but why would you phone them if their stones crap or they’ve given you a pebble when you can have a bullet of someone else? Vicious people. But, then you’ve got some dealers that were so good and nice to you and had A class stone that was fuckin’ wicked, I’m talking this is so much better than an orgasm, and their manners towards you, well, you’d want to phone them. But, you’d fall in love with them and that was a bad thing. It was intentional, obviously. They knew they had you.”

Desperate times…
“If could get a nights rest or a few hours I’d take it. I’d sleep in with men just to get a few hours, some men would con me, tell me that if I’d give them a fuck they’d put me up for the night, but soon as they’d fucked me they’d throw me out. I’ve even been thrown out without my bag and my belongings and they’ve robbed me.
“There was a man I’d been staying with for a while, he’d been helping me out. I’d slowed down on the drugs, and on the working, I’d even started to buy clothes again. But then his neighbour saw two more prostitutes outside one day, talking to me. She got in touch with the neighbourhood watch people, they all came to him and threatened to evict him unless he threw me out. So again, I was homeless, back heavy on the drugs, no where to go and back working even to pay for a bed and breakfast for somewhere to stay.
“I’ve helped girls pay off debts to drug dealers that were going to kill them, help them steal the cash they needed. When you’re in that work you can lift pockets. If a man has given you a tenner for a blow job but you see he has another hundred and eighty quid in his pocket, you grab it if you can. I had some good earners, we would work together. The most me and another girl got off a guy was £1800, we split it. But, my pimp found out about it, they make sure you give it them, I saw forty quid of that money, its not easy. But it’s every dog for himself. Some people will beat you, or bully you, its terrible.”

Police and Prison…
“The police have lied. They have arrested me for the purpose of prostitution when I haven’t been working, I’ve just been walking down the street. Seriously, they get to know areas, and if they know you and don’t like you or they’ve had bad experiences with your pimp they will arrest you when you really haven’t been working.
“If anyone tells you it’s easy to get drugs in prison, they’re lying. Sometimes, you get a rush of drugs, but within an hour they’re finished. Sometimes if you can get a spliff you’re happy with it. I did manage to get some crack in prison though, sometimes people come up on visits with it. Another alternative is prison guards. I was in jail once and I was sleeping with a prison guard. He would bring me cigarettes, chocolate and miniature bottles of alcohol, all sorts. I just needed to ask for the drugs and I could get them. It takes work though.”

Faith….
“Nothing ever lead me to stop believing in God. No, not even in the lowest points, I mean it. I believe in God, but I also question Him. I would like to go to a monastery for the simple reason of finding inner peace. To be in a place like that, away from the world, to focus. If I didn’t find it there, I don’t think I’d ever find it.”

Breakdown…
“On that day I was living around and about, I had about £160 and £100 worth of crack. Believe it or not, I smoked none of the drugs – something – I just wasn’t feeling right so I lent the money and the drugs to this girl, who I thought was my mate. She said she’d let me stay with her and her boyfriend for a while. But she didn’t, they took the gear and kicked me out 3.30 in the morning. I felt so desperately ill and weak I walked to the Drugs Centre and waited for it to open. When it did, they took me to the hospital, I was admitted. They said that 2 days later I would have been dead. Because of the lifestyle, I’d come into contact with TB, but I didn’t know I had it. I was in hospital for a month. It made me realise that I wanted more for my life.”

Helping hand…
“I knew about the drugs centres, and the drug workers do outreach on the street to tell you where they are and give you food and hot drinks. I knew where to go when I needed help.
“I know there is support, and it’s really helping me but it’s me that is helping myself at the end of the day. But I can get strength, I can come to this centre for a chat, people care about you here, I get real support, I can come, have a laugh, be myself, not have to be false, and even by tidying up, I can help out and show that I’m thankful. I still can’t really trust people though, I find that hard.
“I know people judge me for being a drug addict, but to be truthful I’m past caring, life’s too short, I see that. I know that I’ve got myself back on form and whether people want to accept me or not I’ve still got to live my life haven’t I? I’m still trying, I haven’t lapsed in four months, and I’m doing good; look at all the weight I’ve put on! I have goals now, like seeing my family again and being a volunteer in this place in six months if I carry on like this. I’d love to do workshops on drug abuse, drugs, and street life.”
Donna McBride was a JVC volunteer at a centre for women in Birmingham from September 2006 till July 2007

Dr. Mintuet Menjeta by SIGITA BURBULYTE

A veterinary research scientist from Ethiopia, Minutet came to Liverpool in August 2000, to study a Masters Degree in the School of Tropical Medicine. At the time she had recently produced a report for the International Atomic Energy Agency into reproductive aspects of the Tsetse fly, was one of the highest paid academics in Ethiopia and had delivered her papers to International audience in Africa.
The civil unrest in her country made her fearful for her to return and in September 2001 she applied for Asylum, surrendering her passport to the Home Office. With her asylum claim pending, she also applied to the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) and her passport was transferred to this department. It is important to note that Minutet has been without National Asylum Support Service (NASS)’s help since 2003: effectively she is destitute.

From this point onward there has been a catalogue of mismanagement by the Home Office in all their dealings with Minutet. Her asylum claim was refused but notification was sent to the wrong address. Despite making this clear, notification of her hearing decision was again sent to the wrong address. NASS then withdrew her support without warning and despite numerous attempts by her solicitor and Refugee Action, there was no reply from NASS or Home Office.

In September 2003 her HSMP application was rejected, apparently due to insufficient evidence and, although her educational achievements received top marks, the work experience, salary and achievement in field of work, all received zero. In October 03, additional evidence was sent, and concerns raised about her passport, which had not been returned. The silence was deafening and a further four letters were sent following up the additional evidence.

In January 04, the additional documents were returned but with no mention of the case review, why the documents had been returned or why the passport was not with them. March 04 saw a letter from the HSMP apologising that another department had Minutet’s passport and that this would be returned in due course.

In April 04 a letter came from another Government department requesting her passport and accusing her of non-compliance, threatening the use of an enforcement team. Minutet then contacted a local MP to try to bring clarity to the situation. In May that year an apology was sent from the Deputy Chief Caseworker of Scotland, Northern Ireland, North West and Southern Regions, confirming 2 separate teams were working on the application and that this had caused confusion. They also referred to a refusal decision made in April, which Minutet had never received.

Another letter was received in May stating that Minutet was refused on the basis that she had entered the country illegally (clearly untrue as she had a valid visa in her passport to prove this) and that her HSMP marks were zero – the education section for which she had received full marks previously was now also zero.
This was a bleak time for Minutet as her solicitor now gave up her case. She was now destitute, without permission to work and with no passport, so she had no way to leave the country even if she wished to.

Minutet managed to find another solicitor and in June 05 the Immigration Minister replied to the MP apologising for the mistake. The Home Office continually refused to acknowledge that the case had been mishandled, but revealed that Minutet’s passport along with Home Office file, had been lost. It was suggested that she send all her documents and correspondence to the Ministerial Correspondence team in Manchester as a matter of priority for case review.

Despite the Ministers orders, the HSMP said the review was outside the 28 day review period and could not be accepted. Presumably this refers to September 03 when the original claim was rejected. However, once again with the help of the MP, the HSMP agreed to review.

Unsurprisingly the reply in September 05 upheld HSMP’s previous decision, starting that Minutet did not qualify, but still refused to explain why they had arrived at their decisions. In addition there are many mistakes in the refusal letter and she has documentation that shows this.

In January this year a further letter from HSMP was received, stating the application had been rejected on the basis of insufficient evidence and requested further evidence.

This was provided but due to an administration error, which the Home Office acknowledged, the evidence returned without being looked at. It was again sent back and delivery confirmed. Phone calls in April and May with a caseworker showed that the Home Office had again misplaced the file.

In June she received a letter stating she was liable for detention and further letters regurgitating the same flawed reasons for refusal. Minutet has never been given the reason why her salary, work experience and academic achievement have all been awarded zero marks in her HSMP application and her passport is still missing so she still cannot leave the country.

Minutet is destitute: she receives no government money and is not permitted to work. She has even been told she is not allowed to volunteer. She stays with friends and gets money and food where can. She is very well educated and dignified person, who has been crushed by the system and now takes regular medication for depression. In spite of this she still works as a volunteer on a Lung Cancer research programme with the University of Liverpool and at the Glox Neurological Centre. She also works on the allotment plot at Asylum Link and other plot-holders are surprised to find a research scientist tending the tomatoes in the patch next door. She has been waiting 5 years for a resolution to her situation and despite myriad admissions of incompetence by the Home Office, they steadfastly refuse to give either evidence or justification for their decisions, going back to the same tired answers on each occasion.

Sadly for Minutet, her skills as an academic are inevitably degrading as she slips further from her areas of study and her knowledge becomes dated. If you Google Menjeta Tse Tse you will find plenty of references to her papers. This is someone we should have been eager to welcome into our society and who would make a positive contribution to our scientific community. The worst resource you can waste is a human resource.

In December she was sent home…

Sigita volunteered at Asylum Link Merseyside in 2006-7.

Fireside Interview by PATRICIA BEER

The Fireside is a drop-in day centre for the homeless and unemployed located in the heart of Birmingham. Joseph, 41, attends the Fireside on a regular basis. He talks here about his experiences of living on the streets of Birmingham, the society he lives in, and what he would like to get out of life…

“I was 39 years of age when I first experienced rough sleeping. My previous work was to be found working as a Male Carer and Cancer Support Worker helping people who did not have long to live due to the spread of cancer and such like.

“I was made unemployed due to a very severe lower back injury and lost my rented flat as a result. Some landlords will not accept benefits as rent, and the waiting list for a council flat is two years. I had no place to live.

“I first went to London to look for new employment and spent some time living on the streets, coming back to Birmingham, the city where I as born, followed after that. London can be very crowded and there are not a great deal of places to sleep safely at night. There are a very great many rough sleepers down in the city, young and old alike.

“I sleep here, there and everywhere. A homeless person should never sleep alone or tell anyone where their ‘spot’ is. At the beginning, when I first came to Birmingham I slept alone, it’s not a good idea, its dangerous. I now sleep in a group. There were five of us at first, but three moved to a hostel.

“Hostels are horrendous places. Hostels are very much a business. They provide a service, but think about the rent and charges for a minute. If you get into a hostel the government pays £136 per week per person to the hostel and the homeless person has to pay around £50 out of their benefits every two weeks. They aren’t a solution, it gets you off the streets for a few days, but it can’t last. I don’t think much of them at all.

“People react very badly to street people at times. This has a great deal to do with fear and pride if you think about it. It can be very hard to open a bank account, get employment, find housing etc. Homeless people live on the margins of our secular society. There can be a lot of injustice.
You see these people who go into Starbucks to spend £3 on a coffee but they can’t even give a penny to a homeless person. I don’t think our society will ever change, our society has no moral values.

“People can’t really tell that I’m homeless, I try to keep myself clean, and I have a shave at the Fireside every day and change my clothes. I think that the majority of homeless don’t look homeless, it’s something you try to hide. However, when I’m queuing to get into the Fireside, or sometimes when I’m walking in the street with friends people look at you and you can tell they look down on you. No one ever says anything to me. They usually ignore you.

“The police register you with these yellow stop tickets when you are on the streets. When they come over to you they ask questions like ‘are you drinking alcohol or taking drugs?’ you get these tickets for doing nothing, you can be just sitting there and they will come over, its just about how you look. The first time I was given a ticket I was sitting by the bull ring reading a book. They asked me what I was doing and told me to move on. I knew a guy, he had 350 tickets. I don’t have any real problems with the police, I know a lot of them and they know me. They have always been ok with me.

“It’s really difficult to get benefits for a homeless person because of proof of identity. The social security in this city has become more complex in recent years. The forms have become very complex and the system has changed. The system, in my view, relies far too much on modern computer systems and has lost something. Person to person contact is less and technology is more to the fore.

“Many people have been of great help to many homeless people. Many of these have been Christian, such as Birmingham City Mission. I have a friend who got his sleeping bag stolen. I was in church and one of the people we know vaguely asked after my friend and me. I told him about the sleeping bag being stolen and he went and bought one to replace it. He gave it to me and I passed it on to my friend. I was really thankful.

“I’ve used the Fireside for 12 months or so. The Fireside is a place that provides a great service, it’s a place to meet and talk to the staff and the clients. A place to get one’s essential needs met (food, drink, clothes) within a lovely and warm environment.

“My life has taught me that the two most important values are respect for others and courtesy. To treat other people as you would like to be treated. These are basic Christian values really.
Homeless people are good people, they are just in the wrong circumstances. I will change my circumstances and manner of living, I have made good use of the time. It has taught me a lot, but I will change my circumstances. All I would like out of life is health, inner peace, adventure, a good book or two and a smile.”

Patricia was a JVC volunteer 2006-7. She volunteered at Fireside drop in centre.

National Poverty Hearing by PATRICK HANNON

Organised by Church Action on Poverty, the National Poverty Hearing was held in London on 6th December 2006, the culmination of months of hard work. It gave the chance for those who experience poverty in the UK to take advantage of the platform they had been given to make their voices and views heard by top policy makers, church members, poverty campaigners and the general public alike. In attendance were esteemed figures such as Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks and David Lammy MP. But what did this second National Poverty Hearing achieve that the first – held in 1996 – could not? Were people who had recently experienced poverty communicating similar experiences to those who had been in poverty 10 years ago and were politicians and poverty campaigners prepared to listen to their message?

Nearly 500 people crammed into Methodist central Hall in London for the daylong event, including 17 travel weary but enthusiastic JVC volunteers. It was 10 years since the first National Poverty Hearing took place to try to come to terms with huge wealth inequality, unemployment and child poverty at home. So, is Britain so different today? Does poverty still exist? The answer to both those questions is undoubtedly yes. Contrast a Conservative government under John Major, just under 3 million unemployed and 1 in 3 children in households experiencing relative poverty with a Labour government that has brought in a minimum wage and set a timeline to eradicating child poverty by 2012. But if that sounds like a Blarite endorsement for the third way then a few more home truths need to be spoken:

• Consistent and deliberate persecution of asylum seekers through successive laws barring them from work and reducing still further any state or legal support
• Overpayments of benefits and tax credits to low income families which subsequently have to be paid back, plunging those families yet further into the mire
• Rising numbers of low (and medium!) income families who are increasingly facing huge amounts of debt
• And missing the first target towards eradicating child poverty in Britain by 2020

These are just a few of the hurdles Blair faces if he is to look towards the domestic agenda in trying to rescue his 10-year legacy. There is enough there to remind us that representative democracy is not a panacea for the problems of home grown poverty.

And yet, it is not just one man’s responsibility alone. Poverty campaigners from the major charities and pressure groups were reminded in an open mic session of the need to avoid patronising those on low incomes by claiming better budgeting should be part of a drive to promote education as a means to solving poverty. After all, how is it possible to budget for 4 children on £55 a week? Worse still was that 10 years on from the first National Poverty Hearing and very little progress has been made to even acknowledge the existence of urban poverty, let alone how to address it.

If anything, these comments were indicative of a tendency in Britain by political and economic power structures to speak to people rather than listen. It is reassuring that, at a local level at least, that may be about to change. The introduction of participatory budgeting and participatory democracy – albeit on a small scale currently – could herald a new dawn in terms of ordinary citizens deciding for themselves the spending priorities of local councils for the areas where they live.

“We will only have a socially just Britain when…a poor child and rich child born together in a maternity ward each have the same chances of fulfilling their potential. But meritocracy is not social justice: it just changes the people who are over or under privileged. Social justice is when the gap between the rich and the poor is narrow enough to allow children to rise and fall on the social ladder according to their abilities, without causing undue distress to those who slip down.”
Polly Toynbee, Chair at the 2006 National Poverty Hearing

So, was everyone present taking note? Well not everyone was present for a start. We were treated to some quite powerful presentations from Actors for Refugees. Some of the accounts they gave of first escaping one type of oppression abroad only to find themselves facing political oppression in the UK were harrowing and yet no Members of Parliament from the major political parties were around to hear. Conveniently, MPs like David Lammy (Labour), Stephen Timms (Labour) and Oliver Letwin (Conservative) only arrived later in order communicate their respective parties responses to the last 10 years. Nevertheless, the fact that the Conservatives even showed up marks a sea change from the 10 years ago when what mattered most was economic stability. Just like climate change, you don’t know if politicians are taking the issues seriously but they know they have to pay some serious lip service to issues like poverty.

HSBC and KPMG were not going to miss the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon. Each one presented moves in their respective business operations to introduce a “living wage” for all employees significantly above the minimum wage for workers across Britain. Such a move would allow employees to exist above the government’s poverty line without recourse to in-work benefits. But are these big corporations just the exception to the rule? Will the government follow suit by introducing such measures nationwide? It seems that they are tiptoeing along by only promising to raise the minimum wage to £5:52 in October 2007. That is well below the £6:80 (£7:05 in London) demanded by campaign group Church Action on Poverty.

If there was only one part of the National Poverty Hearing that grated with this JVC attendee it was the statement by Britain’s very own cardinal that poverty in Britain could only be alleviated, rather than eradicated altogether. This did not chime very well with Church Action on Poverty national co-ordinator Niall Cooper who challenged policy makers and the public in general to set about eradicating poverty at home by 2020. Is that a realistic target or just high-minded idealism that seeks to raise morale and spur on poverty campaigners in order to make more progress? With the launch of a Make Poverty History At Home campaign set to launch in 2008 it would seem that poverty campaigners, having begun to set the agenda abroad, are in no mood to miss this opportunity at home. With a probable general election in 2009 – and concentrated efforts being made to put poverty issues at the forefront of people’s minds – who would bet against them nearing the completion of their task by the time of the next National Poverty Hearing?
Patrick was a JVC volunteer 2006-7. He volunteered at Church Action on Poverty and the Booth Centre.