OpSafeWinter challenge: Objective Zero Death

 "Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of  justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to  dignity and a decent life.” — Nelson Mandela, former President of South  Africa. 

 Each year, homeless freeze to death in the street. A reality that is more and more alarming as the number of homeless increase every year. The  governements have failed providing a long-term solution to end the  homelessness issue. In fact, our governements just seems to have  abandoned their responsabilities toward their populations.  By allowing  those with power and money to dominate the housing market, they have  failed in their responsability to provide the people with affordable  houses. Governements actions and decisions played a great part in the creation of homelessness and it's never-ending growth.

 Homeless live in the most difficult conditions and are deprived of  everything: shelter, food, drinkable water, sanitation facilities, and  feeling of safety and security. They are exposed to violence,  discrimination, criminalisation and stigmatisation. Due to the harsh  conditions of the life in the street, homeless life expectancies is far  lower than the rest of the population. This is a direct violation of  human rights and shoudn't be allowed or tolerated in a modern society. 

 As more stories of homeless dying in the street comes out in the news, we can only ask ourself what could we do to end homelessness once and for all. 

 First it could be useful to know that the FEANTSA and the Housing Rights Watch organisations have launched a homeless bill of rights  for European regions. The main objective of this bill is to get local  concil across Europe to recognise their obligation to provide homeless  with solutions to exit homelessness. It would make access to decent  emergency accomodation mandatory and would also protect and preserve the  rights of homeless people. 

 If the goverments have an important responsability toward homeless  population, we as individual can also play our part to help.  OpSafeWinter new challenge, objective zero death aim at end homeless  death in the street by providing help to increase their living  conditions. 

 What can you do to help?

OpSafeWinter is an operation  that aim at organising every year an international event on the 10 of  december to help homeless. In many countries, anons around the world  gather in small group to help the homeless in their communities. The  idea of this new challenge is to increase the help toward the homeless  community by reaching out to them not only one day, but every day until  the end of winter. 

 If organising daily event can be hard for some of us, we can still all  help at least one homeless person everyday. On our way to school or  work, we all enconter homeless people, if we were to change our habits  and stop by, talk to them, buy them a coffee or some food, or take with  us some extra blanket or clothes that we don't need anymore it could  improve their quality of life. A small action repeated by several person  can led to great change. 

 Everyday, no matter how hard our day was, we have the chance and  blessing to come home, to safety, with our families, where food and  comfortable beds are waiting for us. Homeless are children, veterans,  elderly, parents, people struggling with health issues, people who do  not share our chance. It is not an act of charity to help them, it is a  moral duty, a responsability that fall upon us all. Let's make it our  new year resolution to make sure that no more homeless is left to die in  the streets. 

 Happy new year and God bless you all.

This article is written as part of OpSafeWinter, if you wish to help and contribute, join us at anonboards.com and post in this forum thread.