Shelter Resident Creates Libraries Inside San Francisco Shelters Without Funding !
San Francisco has an abundance of talent, ideas, creativity and 'outof the box' thinking -- right inside of our own tax funded Homeless Shelters.
We have some great shelter residents, like this man here (Mr. Tomas Picarello) with many years worth of skills and diverse experiences, coming from all walks of life.
They (homeless) actually mirror our non-homeless community in every way.
That's because our San Franciscan residents whom (fortunately) do still have jobs, homes & stability and our San Francisco residents whom (unfortunately) no longer have their jobs, homes & stability, are the same, in almost every aspect.
Our City's homeless residents used to have jobs, careers, houses, apartments, just like every other resident here.
Their skills and experience didn't just disappear when they became home-less, but their normal and necessary access to basic tools and resources did disappear.
Lack of a voice, lack of full participation in community decision making processes, lack of access to adequate resources and tools; and being treated as 'less than' or 'strangely different' by our own communities are the barriers that prevent them from 'getting back' on their feet.
These barriers are knowingly or unknowingly being imposed (by the rest of our community; including the city agencies, advocates, service providers, and the general public) upon our home-less residents without their consent or approval.
When any person is discriminated against because of a group 'label' that denotes they are somehow 'less than' or 'unable' to be the same as everyone else, and because of those erroneous beliefs, they are prevented from having access to all of the community participation, tools and resources that everyone else has -- this is called oppression.
These kinds of flawed approaches and methods cause the dis-empowerment of our poor, elderly, disabled, homeless and veteran residents who deserve to be treated as they really are.
All of our City's residents (home-less or not) are of equal value and are deserving to be fully engaged and included in all community decisions and processes, without exception or seperation and division.
Volunteer projects like this one can help empower our home-less residents and give them tools (for FREE!) to help them improve their own lives, without being dependent on goverment or non-profits, directly.
Projects like this one, born out of the mind of a home-less resident, serve to 'give' knowledge and safe, quiet and productive spaces for shelter residents (and staff) to learn and grow.
SEE THE FULL ARTICLE ON THE BLOG FOR MORE DETAILS ABOUT THIS LIBRARY SHELTER PROJECT.
If YOUhave a couple hours a week to spare as a volunteer 'librarian' or if you have any books, shelving or drawing & writing supplies and paper to donate to this Shelter Library Project, please email Tomas today -- by clicking here !
Tags: Reading | San Francisco | amanda witherell | book donations | books | Community | cure for ignorance | donations | ECS | empowerment | episcopal community services | fight ignorance | friends of the san francisco public library | from the heart | FUNDED | homeless | homeless shelters | illiteracy | kind and caring | kindness | library projects | Life | linzie coleman | literacy | next door shelter | one person can make a difference | Public Library | puts | RESIDENT | self-help | sf bay guardian | sfpl.org | shelter | Social Justice | Strange | Tomas | tomas picarello | volunteer opportunities | volunteer spirit
1 comment:
Hi nice reading your poost
Post a Comment