Barka UK has recently taken part in a short study visit to the Netherlands.
Part of our team, visited Barka’s headquarters in Utrecht, and later a training apartment, funded by the Dutch government for homeless beneficiaries of Barka, as part of social housing project in this city.
A very fruitful day started with meeting Barka’s NL team – Daria, Larisa, Edyta, Carli, Wimen and Herman – also a Director of Barka in NL, Magda joined us. The team discussed workshops that Barka NL’s management staff recently took part in, to be able to respond more effectively to new challenges (workshops very similar to those conducted at Barka in Poznań by Marie from Fluent).
The focus of the meeting was also on Barka’s cooperation with ministries and municipalities in the Netherlands and the Dutch media’s interest in Barka.
Piotr 7 and Lukasz Baczkowski, Barka leaders both participated in a meeting at the BARKA training apartment in Utrecht. Feliks, a resident of the flat, talked about difficult experiences of living and working in the Netherlands and how Barka helps him to find a job and get back on track with his life.
In general a training flat helps to practice the ability to function independently in life. As part of the support, residents’ guardians will work with tenants within the following areas: social work, support in solving debt problems, advice and training in household budget management also training in various competences, such as support in rebuilding bonds with family, social/interpersonal skills, including: inclusion, developing house rules, joint supervision.
More broadly, residents learn about living in a society and it’s aspects: ability to use the help of various admin offices, social life, employment support, team skills and communication, interpersonal relationships, dealing with and solving emotions conflicts, addiction therapy, sobriety mentoring, etc.
As part of the support, residents’ guardians work with tenants also on a sense of responsibility and bearing the consequences of their own actions or omissions and feeling of being part of a community and a society. To summarise training flat project helps to practice the ability to function independently in life.
