There are needs that individuals cannot be dprived of
by the general public,
and these are: bread and the roof over your head.
St. Brother Albert
St. Brother Albert's Aid Society
Wrocław, Poland
St. Brother Albert's Aid Society is a
non-governmental catholic charity organisation. The Society aims
at giving help to the homeless and the poor in Poland - according
to the spirit of its Patron, st. Brother Albert. We make efforts
to help homeless people recover from homelessness throgh social
work, care of souls and legal help.
The Society was founded in 1981 and has been in operation ever since.
At the moment we
are runnig 62 homes:
- 34 shelters for men and 2 institutions being a partly shelter and partly an overnight shelter, there are 2100 places
- 2 hostels for men, there are 24 places
- 7 shelters for women and mothers with children for 240 persons
- 1 orphanage with 45 children
- 9 homes for the elderly and the sick, 270 persons reside there
- 5 overnight shelters for 355 men
- 1 overnight shelter for women with 15 places
- 1 warming room with 40 places for men
and 4 preventive flats for 20 persons
Alltogether, our homes give shelter to over 3000 people.
We also manage:
- 12 kitchens and 2 chophouses which serve 2500 meals daily
- 3 baths
- 1 charity pharmacy
- Estate agency for conversion of encumbered flats into small, low-standard ones
- Community centers, day-rooms
- Albertine clubs - assistance clubs for the homeless after leaving the shelter
- Clothing and food service centers
Our centers are run by volunteers grouped in 61 circles which are maintained, to a large extent, due to generosity of our society - state subsidies cover only 50% of all costs.
Last activities (X 2003 - X 2004)
- X 2003 - We were accepted to FEANTSA with a status of a coresponding member
- XII 2003 - "Zielony Mikołaj" (Green Santa Clause) campaign in department stores in Wrocław. Volunteers dressed as Green Santa Clauses collected money on children in St. Brother Albert's hostel for the 9th time. 30 000 PLN was collected.
- XII 2003 - two new circles in Katowice (Śląsk) and Kąkolewnica (Podlasie) were started.
- XII 2003 - New outlet - overnight shelter for 5 men was opened in Brzeziny (near Łódz), clothes giving and legal, social and addition advices.
- XII 2003 - overnight shelter for men in Wrocław was moved to the new, bigger building near the railway station. There are 160 places at present. Free baths and equipped surgery room are there.
- I 2004 - warming room with 40 places for men was opened near the railway station in Katowice.
- I 2004 - overnight shelter for men with 15 places was opened in Tomaszów.
- III 2004 - two new circles in Tapin (Podkarpacie) and Tomaszów (Mazowsze) were established.
- V 2004 - a new circle in Dębica (Podkarpacie) was founded.
- VI 2004 - 1100 persons, including 540 residents of our shelters, took part in the yearly pilgrimage of the Society to St. Brother Albert's Sanctuary in Kraków.
- VII 2004 - five residents of our shelters became members of Polish national team in streetsoccer which won the third place in The Homeless World Cup, Gothenburg 2004
- X 2004 - two new circles in Bytom and Oleśnica were started
Our adress: Towarzystwo Pomocy im. św. Brata Alberta, Pl. Solny 14a, 50 - 062 Wrocław,
telephone (071) 341-041-19, telephone/fax (071) 344-37-35
e-mail:tpba@bratalbert.org.pl
More information:
The
homeless in Poland
The number of the homeless people in
Poland has increased rapidly since 1989 due to the system and
economic changes in the country. At present there are an esimated
60 000 homeless people in Poland. Who are the homeless? The
homeless people arriving at St. Brother Albert's shelters are
mostly Poles, but also foreigners, especially those from accross
the eastern border. According to the spirit of Christianity,
every man is our brother, sister. In the shelters there are many
more men than women. Most often divorced husbands and fathers
become homeless, then alcoholics, drug-addicts and ex-prisoners,
but also unemployed men who have lost their jobs as well as
elderly people left alone by their families and people with
psychical disorders. In most cases their tragedy resulted from
miserable childhood spent in a pathological family or an
orfphanage. Amongst the homeless women, the largest groups are:
unmaried mothers rejected by their families and closest friends,
women ill-treated by their alcoholic husbands, elderly women left
alone by their grown up children.
The
development of the Society
There were fruitless attempts to
establish a society rendering help to homeless people in Wrocław
as early as the 1970 s. The communist authorities of the city
claimed that there were no homeless people in The People's
Republic of Poland. Only on November 2nd, 1981 - still on the
wave of "Solidarity" - the society labelled Adam
Chmielowski's Aid Society (present St. Brother Albert's) was
incorporated. The first shelter for the homeless was opened in
Wrocław on Christmas Eve 1981, in the time of the Martial Law in
Poland (1981 - 83). It appeared very much awaited and immediately
got inhabited with homeless men. The Society spread into entire
Poland from Wrocław, through Warsaw, Lublin, Poznań, Kielce,
Cracow . . . Today there are 49 regional circles which run 48
homes securing accomodation and simple subsistence to thousands
of homeless people. The homes follow the principles worked out by
St. Brother Albert. Apart from the shelters, the Society manages
12 kitchens providing lunch meals to over 2500 poor and hungry
per day, as well as charity pharmacy and two free baths. We have
been also performing adaptations of buildings to convert them
into new shelters as well as necessary modernizations and
redecorations of our shelters. Many of these tasks are carried
out by the inhabitants of our homes. This is according to St.
Brother Albert's principle of rehabilitation through work. The
development of the Society is possible owing to the activity of
its members from amongst secular individuals with support by the
Roman Catholic Church and municipality authorities, and, to a
large extent, to the generosity of private persons. Almost since
the very begining, since the times of the Martial Law the Society
has had friends amongst the Polish colonies overseas (the UK, the
USA and Canada, France, Germany) and foreigners from many
countries - the goodwill people, who, in the name of love of
one's neighbour, help the homeless in Poland.
You can
help
Because all state and municipal
subsidies cover only 50 %
of all costs of a very modest living,
our centers may operate
due to the generosity of goodwill people.
If you want to help you can do it by
- contribution to the following
account:
Bank Polska Kasa Opieki SA, Grupa PEKAO S.A.
Nr 12401994-07002030-2700-401112-001-0000
- sending us goods like: medicines, clothes, blankets, mattresses, cleansers and cleaning products.
Supporting St. Brother Albert's shelters
- you give help where it is most needed,
- you show interpersonal solidarity,
- you answer the call of your conscience,
- you contribute to the reduction of crime-rate.
St. Brother Albert
(Adam Chmielowski,
1845-1916)
- great patriot
- talented artist-painter
- heroic servant and father of the poor
Adam Chmielowski, born on 20 th August, 1845, was
chosen Patron of the Society. He is a hero, who, during the
national uprising for Poland(s freedom, at the age of 18 was
severely wounded in a battle with Russians and lost his leg. As a
political emigrant he undertook painting studies in Paris, which
he honourably completed in Munich in 1874. Amongst the artists
and writers in Warsaw, he gained a reputation as one of
precursors of Polish impressionism. One of his most famous
artistic works is "Ecce Homo", the result of his
recognition of God(s love for man, which led Chmielowski to a
spiritual metamorphose.
From 1880 he was in a quest for his life route. He
found that route in 1887 when in the Cracow public dormitories he
saw the material and moral misery of the homeless and the
derelicts, and for the love of Christ, whose countenance he
recognized in their forsaken manhood, he decided to abandon his
career and live among the poor sharing their lot as Brother
Albert. Through the Congregation of the Third Order of St.
Francis Servant of the poor (Albertine) and a similar
Congregation of Albertine Sisters, which he founded, Brother
Albert organized shelters for the homeless, homes for the
crippled and incurables and kitchens for the poor, which gave
many needy people food, clothes and accomodation. "You
should be as good as bread, which rests on the table for everyone
and from which everyone, if they are hungry, may cut a piece to
feed themselves" is the lesson he taught us. Brother Albert
died on Christmas day 1916, in Cracow, in the shelter founded by
him, poor among the poor. His funeral was a manifestation of
respect and love. The whole Cracow wanted to say goodbye to
"the greatest person of his time" as he was referred to
by his contemporaries. Brother Albert(s heroic love for the human
being was brought to altars. He was beatified by Pope John Paul
II in 1983 in Cracow and proclaimed among the saints in 1989 in
Rome.