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PROJECT COSTA: Recovered alcoholics start charity to get homeless expats off Costa Blanca streets
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Oct 29, 2024
Visit the BayRadio web article to find out more about this video: https://www.bayradio.fm/2020/10/14/project-costa-recovered-alcoholics-give-food-and-support-to-homeless-expats-on-the-costa-blanca/
View Video Transcript
0:00
this is bay radio
0:06
she told me my acc suit if i stay one
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day more on the street i'm gonna die
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and this is again pretty much effect on
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me
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how the hell can another homeless person
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steal from another homeless person
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stealing from us
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[Music]
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and i cannot handle this anymore
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i will not leave this bench unattended
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and i can't walk the streets with all
0:55
the banks
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simple as that i think when i stay here
0:59
and
1:00
i'll rough it out and then when somebody
1:02
else comes who i can trust
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he lives a couple of years
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so do you feel with these guys there is
1:16
there's trust there
1:19
i trust them implicitly
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i trust them implicitly
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[Music]
1:39
hi guys my name is sute i'm the founder
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of project costa
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welcome to mcdonald's
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the idea is to feed the homeless look if
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i can find some people on the streets
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who are willing who have willing to get
1:56
off the streets to get back in society
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and i want to help them to get clean in
2:00
a halfway home and
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and you are now visiting the halfway
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home where you are in this is the
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halfway home
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we're just rebuilding we are making a
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soup kitchen
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we are making rooms with burn beds so
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and
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the the thing is we take it baby steps
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first of all we started and we wanted to
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take one place and feed from there
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but because of the the homeless didn't
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know us yet
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they they didn't came so we had 11 12
2:26
feet that night and then
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i was thinking we can better uh draw a
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map
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and look where they live and and this is
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what we've been doing the last three
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three weeks so we go in the car with the
2:37
food
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and we drive starting in calpe and we
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found ourselves some homeless that are
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living four or five homeless
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in the bus station of calpe
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so first we start there give them the
2:50
food give them clothes give them
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blankets give them whatever they need
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and then the next one is
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living in front of the mcdonald's on the
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on a park
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he was sleeping on the bench so we took
3:03
care of some blankets we
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took care of some mattresses for him
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that he can live there and
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so so we went around and we have now in
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cart
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about 23 30 people already where they
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live and
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we're feeding them at their homes but
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they don't have homes so
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it's a home in the open air and well
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by um it's from bernie um he
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speaks about spanish he's been in
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this area for a while now um his story
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so far
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is uh it came originally to see his
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uncle who died of cancer
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um the house got repossessed and then he
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ended up on the streets
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and decided to stay in spain um he won
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the street for a couple of nights and
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all his stuff got stolen
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um his luggage his documents and so on
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and he just went down in a spiral with
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alcohol and he's been here ever since
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um he says he's been on the street for
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nine months but i think it's a bit
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longer
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um once you've been drinking every day
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or going down in a spiral
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or an invisible line what you don't see
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um you end up
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in this situation you know you kind of
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lose
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dignity you know you all hope of getting
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home
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uh i've been i was on that bench over
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there
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and i moved over here simply because
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the people come in and the sand says
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no pedals no dogs but they come in there
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and it's it stinks
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we asked him if he wanted to go home and
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he's not ready to go home yet
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um i think he's nervous to see his
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parents or his sister
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but the options there so anytime he's
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ready to
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leave this behind and go home we'll have
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to support him and help him as much as
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we can
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i don't want to go anywhere but it's
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always handy to have a passport
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you know just in case you need to go
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back to england
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but i have no intention of going back to
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england
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because you know last three years okay
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but coming up for winter now we're gonna
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get colder and colder man so
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what happened for me in 2013 i was
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working in tourism
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um selling tickets for the vatican
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museum and a coliseum
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to tour companies and
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basically there was a very long line for
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the colosseum or the vatican
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the tourism went down i couldn't pay my
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rent
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and the landlord kicked me out um i
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ended up on the streets
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um slept two days on the street all my
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luggage was stolen
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including my documents my passport and i
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was trapped
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so he's gonna need at least three pairs
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of jeans these are levi's birthday
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now um what happened is i
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turned to alcohol because i wanted to
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sleep on a night
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and i became an alcoholic i said no
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that you are on the street gives you an
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excuse to drink
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you know yeah because then they can say
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yeah
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of course i drink if you are in my
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situation
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you
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so if we can save some people on the
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street who are alcoholics
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then probably we can take them off the
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streets also but you have to help them
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with their drug and alcohol problem
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before you take them off to sleep i was
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traumatized when i was in australia
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i was traumatized and i couldn't believe
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i
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i couldn't blame the public for that
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quote
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you know i didn't go on moments when i'd
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expect nobody said i was awesome i
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didn't speak
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to anybody you know it was a long time
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and i
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you know guess where i slept outside the
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vatican
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outside the church the vatican the main
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church
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and not even a priest
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how'd you get your face back um yeah
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you just i went to the soup kitchen
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volunteered
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and the sisters so i had a bit of
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interest
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and that's how i put some pounds up for
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them i did a bit of cooking for them
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and that's how conversations built up
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and they said to me
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i was the only english guy all of us
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were in the eastern european
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i was the only english guy and they said
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y'all better than this
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why are you on the street i expect my
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situation
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and you're gonna give me let me have a
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shower a bag of clothes i decided from
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here i just stood up
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and i looked know
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project room was just showing compassion
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and kindness
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i used to cook 200 meals twice a week
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and i used to go to an area as a train
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station
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in central rome it looks after the
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people
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in that way and yeah we did fundraising
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the community came together and saw what
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were happening
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and got involved and we managed to get a
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lot
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um 55 off the streets by doing what we
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did
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this is bay radio
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