Volunteer work at Accueil Bonneau

by gbrouillard on May 4, 2016 - 12:12pm

I have decided to do my volunteer work with an organism related to homelessness. After doing some research on the volunteer opportunities close by, I chose to contact the Accueil Bonneau situated in the old Montreal. This organism has as a goal to welcome any homeless person or anyone who is at risk of homelessness by daily journeying with that person in responding to his basic needs and helping him achieve a better quality of life and well-being. The work I did there was to serve the people who came to have a lunch during the second service of the day. I gave chips to people who asked for it. The second service of the day is from 1 pm to 3:15 pm. What surprised me the most during my experience was the fact that many people did not look like what we imagine homeless people look like. Many of them were dressed properly and did not carry any baggage. Also, I was surprised about how the people were thankful and respectful to the volunteers. The reason why I decided to do my volunteer work with homeless people is because I believe that this problem is a social one. It is a social problem mostly because it can affect anyone in the population and it already affects a lot of persons; at least 200,000 Canadians access homeless emergency services or sleep outside in a given year, as many as 1.3 million Canadians have experienced homelessness or extremely insecure housing at some point during the past five years and there may be as many as 50,000 “hidden homeless” Canadians on a given night. In conclusion, I believe that if the government and the population in general could put more emphasis on helping these people, by giving money or by putting in place more programs, it would really reduce the rate of homeless people. The following link is a visual representation of this text.





I think you had a great idea to go and help homeless people at Accueil Bonneau. Nobody chooses to live on the street, and I think helping the ones in need is a great thing to do. Especially in Canada, where winters are very cold, people struggle to survive in the extreme temperatures, and all the help they can get is the best for them. I also liked that you posted statistics in Canada of the number of people that are homeless and need help. However, I think you could of interviewed someone that commonly works at that specific place in order to get an even better perspective to the everyday life of an itinerant. You could of even asked a homeless person to describe their experience, it would have been very interesting. Overall, good job for your work!

First of all, your article is really interesting. Only by reading your post, we can see all the emotions you had felt throughout your experience in Accueuil Bonneau. We can see that you were excited and surprised by what you saw. After reading your article, I wanted to do something for homeless people as well!
If the organization wants to share experiences just like yours and then encourage people to take action into the homelessness issue, maybe they should publish them. Have you heard of the newspaper named “L’itineraire”? It is a newspaper in Montreal who shares lives and experiences of homeless people. What is really interesting about this newspaper is that the articles are in fact written by itinerants. So, we can feel their emotions through their writings.
It is a really powerful press because, throughout their reading, more people would be willing help less fortunate people, just like you did!
Congratulations again for your amazing job in Acceuil Bonneau! You are inspiring me and probably much more people!
Here is the link to the newspaper: http://itineraire.ca/
Here is a link to my post explaining my experience in an organization working toward inequalities named Oxfam: http://www.newsactivist.com/en/articles/champlain-college-2016-newsactiv...