BVHS ‘Building a Future for the Homeless’

 

The Barbados Vagrants and Homeless Society (BVHS) has officially launched its “Building a Future for the Homeless Campaign”.

 

This campaign will see the Society partnering with various local artistes and businesses, to push a “Dollar Drive” initiative in 24 locations, to raise money to purchase a building at a cost of $1.7 million, so that the Society can relocate and build out its programmes for the homeless.

 

President of the Barbados Vagrants and Homeless Society (BVHS), Kemar Saffrey spoke about the campaign yesterday, during a press conference held at BVHS Headquarters in Tudor Street, Bridgetown, St. Michael. Present at the press conference was popular Barbadian artistes Lead Pipe and Saddis, Seth Bovell and his counterpart Nadia Phillips, Tisha Dhayle, Marketing Officer with Unicomer (Barbados) Ltd. (trading as Courts) and Sharon Howell, Marketing Officer with the Communications and Customer Service arm of Republic Bank. Not present was Rorrey Fenty, brother of international songbird Rihanna, who is also on board.

 

“With our initiative, we want to reach the 1.7 million dollar mark, to help purchase a building that we have earmarked for the homeless, here in the City of Bridgetown,” Saffrey indicated, noting the target is before year-end.

 

The building to which he refers, is located almost opposite the Central Bank of Barbados, on the same stretch of road that is home to a supermarket.

“One of the things that we are looking at, is definitely working along with Courts Barbados Ltd., CIBC First Caribbean Bank and the Republic Bank of Barbados, in order to make this initiative a success. So we will be placing the (collection) bottles, cans and the display we have here, in all of these locations and customers can give their contribution to this initiative,” Saffrey noted.

 

At present, the BVHS has 380-plus persons on file and assists on average a total of 70 persons on a day-to-day basis. Saffrey indicated that given the space limitations at the BVHS’ present location, there is need for the homeless society, which has been in existence for the past eight years, to have its own home, so it can spread its wings even further.

 

“We need to get a home (to better accommodate) the number of clients that we see and the number of activities that we do. Here is too small. We want to have our own training room, our own facilities, our own recreational room for homeless persons, so we can continue our work getting homeless persons off the street and back into society,” the BVHS President indicated.

 

Endorsing the campaign, the artistes present noted that they gave the nod to the project, to bring greater attention to the plight of the homeless, amongst the younger demographic. The representatives from both Courts and Republic Bank also commended the BVHS for a well-run programme and they noted that they saw the need to assist,as part of their corporate social responsibility.