Visitors of four shelters collaborate with festival builders, DJs and dance lovers.
The city of Amsterdam has the highest number of homeless people in the Netherlands. For many of them, shelters are the only place where they can feel at home. However, due to a mostly practical layout, the locations often don’t feel very homely and some are in a very poor state. In collaboration with four major dance festivals from Amsterdam, Homebass Foundation and The Paco Foundation are working together to change this and give the shelters a make-over that matters. Give them some color some might say. They call on tens of thousands of dance lovers to take action and together create an environment that contributes to the recovery of the visitors. The project, called “Geef Couleur” (give colour), Has started in October with the goal of giving four different shelters a makeover before Christmas.
Healing environments
Many of the visitors regularly spend nights in the cold. The aim of the makeovers is to transform the shelters into places where everyone feels equally warm, safe, and at home. Important, because the majority of visitors have been through a lot. In the shelters, they can freshen up, change clothes, have something to eat and or drink and they can receive social counseling. Romulus, a regular visitor of one of the shelters, explains how important these places are: “Surviving on the street for 20 years has often left me literally dehumanized. Ever since I’ve come here, I’ve started to feel like I’m human again. Little by little” During the makeovers, the visitors of the shelters get to work together with festival builders, well-known DJs, local residents, and dance enthusiasts to make their shelter more colourful. That means new furniture, atmospheric light, a fresh coat of paint, and more green.
The power of festivals
Robert-Jan Glas, campaign manager of Homebass Foundation, is pleased with the support from the festival sector: “Festival organizers are pre-eminently specialized in realizing a total experience and know-how to transform a place into a hospitable, safe and colorful world in no time at all. In the last year and a half, all festivals have taken huge blows due to the Lockdown. Despite all of this, they remain socially involved and we really appreciate that.” Moreover, the collaboration with the festival sector is a way of bringing the importance of safe shelters to the attention of the young audience of festivals, Glas believes: “With the current housing crisis, many more people are at risk of becoming homeless, especially young people and young adults, and that is precisely the most important target group of festivals. By involving festivals, we expose the challenge of social care in an accessible way. This way we hope to break the stigma surrounding homelessness. “
Give Couleur
In order to finance the project, dance lovers are invited to contribute with a campaign on social media. With videos and photography, everyone gets a unique insight into the Amsterdam shelters. Tours and explanations are done by the homeless visitors themselves. Anyone who wants to, can then make a donation via the website. This can be done, for example, by funding a box of nails for 5 euros, but also a sound system for 250 euros. The aim of the crowdfunding campaign is to raise at least 40,000 euros to decorate, furnish and paint the four shelters.
The promotion can be found on www.geefcouleur.nl
