Calamities
The aim of Volontariat, as a humanitarian organization, and of its social workers, is to improve the present and work for the future of each person or family who approaches them in a distress condition. To reach this goal, solutions have to be found with (and not for) the person or family, especially when children are involved.
Our constant concern, from the beginning, can be summed up in a few words:” Live today, while planning for tomorrow”. In addition, two words to describe good social work, even if they are sometimes overused: awareness programmes and sustainable development.
This is true in many fields, like health, employment, integration into society, etc. It can be done individually, but the support and the control of a group is essential for the sustainability of any plan or action, so Volontariat has favoured the creation of Self help groups, specially for women.
Health
The programmes are focusing on preventive action, like improvement of hygiene, individual and collective, quality of food and water, cleanliness of toilets, awareness campaigns (information on sexuality, child abuse, alcoholism, sexually transmitted diseases, diseases transmitted by mosquitoes etc). And at the same time, people with illness are attended to, sent to hospital, and operated upon, if necessary. Read the website on these subjects in News or Actualités.
Employment
A regular income is an absolute need for the stability of any family, so the social workers try to help jobless individuals or families, through their contacts, through apprenticeship (Liege carpentry section, Uyarvu, electrical or cell phone courses) or by creating jobs in their production units (Atelier Shanti, Handicrafts).
Integration into Society
Volontariat has always fought against any discrimination or segregation, so our social workers help persons or groups rejected by society to reintegrate those
rejected due to their sickness/handicap: those cured of leprosy, the physically or mentally handicapped
rejected due to being from a specific community: gypsies
rejected due to their behaviour: street children,
rejected due to abject poverty and inability to work : aged people from the streets
It is a long way to go and the war is never totally won
Housing
Volontariat is concerned with the living conditions of the poor families of Uppalam and the areas nearby, of its employees and the families of the sponsored children.
Every year, roofs of many huts are repaired or replaced after a social enquiry and a sharing of costs by the family, when possible. The thatched huts are temporary as the roof, made of coconut leaves, is replaced every 2 to 4 years and the wooden structure, every 4 years. Sometimes the roof is made of iron sheets, “brown sheets”, which are more expensive and have a life of 6 to 8 years. When the roof is leaking, the mud walls dissolve and collapse, especially in the heavy monsoon rains. It would cost the equivalent of 300 euros [in 2010] to repair the house, which may appear low to Europeans, but for a family on the economic margin, with no regular income, it is quite impossible to save this amount of money.
Volontariat favours the construction of permanent houses for its employees. For that, a program of housing has been developed, giving interest-free loans to the families who can produce a legal ownership document for the plot of land on which the house stands. The reimbursement of the loan follows a schedule based on the income. As of 2010, most of the staff families of Volontariat are living in permanent houses.
Recently and after the fires of 2006 and 2007, particularly near Uppalam where more than 500 huts were destroyed and two people died, the Government of the Union Territory of Pondicherry decided to boost the construction of permanent houses for the poor by giving subsidy to the families who own their plots. One reason, obviously, was to reduce the fire disasters. The Volontariat took part in the reconstruction of these houses, through the Sponsorship programme or special donations, where the family of a sponsored child is concerned, by giving the family a subsidy, in addition to the amount given by the Government.
