To volunteer for shelters for homeless programme, Chennai Corporations is having plans
Posted on: 23/Feb/2019 10:38:26 AM
It is now revealed that the Chennai Corporation has been inviting the students mostly those studying social work subjects to volunteer for ‘shelters for homeless’ programme. The purpose was to create awareness and for carrying out volunteer work at the 51 night shelters in Chennai.
Every shelter must be linked with a high school or college so that the students could engage with the residents of these shelters. By this the quality of the shelters is ensured and the community service would be learned. This was according to the NULM or National Urban Livelihoods Mission operational guidelines.
Volunteering work and monitoring could be made more effective by involving the students as well as faculty of school or college. This was later confirmed by a source. The important point is participation of the students would be voluntary only.
An official explained about how the main objective behind this was to create awareness about the night shelter programme and corporation helpline for reporting homeless people. The superb information is those colleges that tie up with this programme could send their students for voluntary work at the night shelters. To enlist the schools and colleges that are having interest in tying up with the night shelters, shelter coordinators would be playing their roles effectively. Enhanced monitoring of these shelters would be possible by the involvement of students etc.
As per Vanessa Peter, policy researcher, information and resource centre for deprived urban communities, students could be involved in volunteer work, documentation and they could involve themselves in conducting activities for the residents of the shelters. The major advantages of this are more accountability could be brought plus infrastructure provided at the urban homeless shelters could be improved.
There are many homeless people in Chennai and it is now brought out that 3 rescue vans would be used to reach out to these homeless people. Important point is department had received approval for purchasing 3 vans now. There would be rescue van for each region under the corporation of Chennai and they would also be utilized for education and creating awareness on the shelters for the homeless programme.
