Today we want to give focus to the 4th world,
which lives with us and unfortunately is growing by the day. Due to the crisis, due to abuse from
those in power, due to dreams not materialising, due to personal bad luck, due
to any number of reasons. It
exists, it’s real and we must not turn our backs on it. What’s more, nearly no one can be
certain that they will not be in a similar position one day.
We want to dedicate this post to Zaqueo, an organisation
with no government support, only the support of individuals, that gives it’s time
and efforts to the homeless who sleep only metres from the tourist shops of
Palma, to those with no financial means and very little government
support. At Zaqueo they can get
breakfast and dinner, and at various times during the week can shower. Some also are able to sleep in this
small space.
Mediterranea has been supporting Zaqueo for many years by
providing food and volunteer help.
It is in front of Zaqueo that Mediterranea volunteers distribute 200 –
300 ‘Dignipacs’ once a month. Bags
that contain basic toiletries. The
objective of these Dignipacs is to ensure that whoever has lost their job and
has no or very little income, does not also have to loose their dignity and are
able to maintain their personal hygiene and health.
Last week numerous reports came out on IB3 TV, in various
newspapers and radio stations giving information and details of Mediterranea’s
distribution of the Dignipacs, a couple are shown here.
We describe here the people that Zaqueo looks to support,
and who the untiring Angel, who runs Zaqueo, works with every day. He’s an example to us all.
Who they help.
You’ve seen them in the streets: those who help with
parking, clean windscreens, sell handkerchiefs, beg, search through the rubbish
bins, prostitutes or delinquents.
They are men and women none of whom have work, a house, or the support
of their family. No home, or roof
to cover them, abandoned and rejected by society, in absolute loneliness with nowhere
to live but the streets. They are
men and women, many of whom are irrecoverably drug dependent, alcoholics,
immigrants who have fled poverty and fallen into misery: Spanish, Africans,
Rumanians, Bulgarians and Northern Europeans all united by one characteristic,
that they have all been very unlucky and are alone and abandoned: they don’t show up in the statistics so
as not to ‘produce’ problems, they are a nuisance, they are trapped but none of
them ever imagined that they’d be where they are now. You can’t believe that they are where they are only by their
own hand; somehow society has failed them and let them fall into the gutter.
Zaqueo doesn’t judge them, simply welcomes them, attends
them, gives them food and a bed but also understanding, caring and love.
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