I've been thinking recently about the feasibility of setting up some sort of homeless outreach thing in coventry & or lem spa. At the moment the only outreach service in coventry is the salvation army and, for obvious reasons, I don't think that's a good thing. However I wasn't sure about the feasibility of it:
At first I was thinking informally, we phone up or write to marks & spencers or any other high street food shop and say we're from a student volunterring project. there was a charity i was involved with in manchester who for outreach would go to m&s, pick up all the sandwiches which had display until dates which had expired that day (but were still got to eat for another day or two) then (along with other things) distribute them round town.
However it occured to me that if we're getting students involved in this then
a) some warwick uni undergraduates (and post-grads for that matter) may lack common sense about how to handle some of the situations then can possibly arise
b) there's always the possibility of coming across syringes and various other first aid considerations so some sort of basic first aid training is probably necessary
c) if anything happens are we liable? it occurred to me that all the charities i've done work for went out of thier way to go over safety/health stuff. is this to ensure liability? if we can affiliate with some university society already affiliated with the union can we get coverage through them? has anyone got any idea who i would talk to about this or the legal issues surrounding it?
cool, so yeah if anyone has any thoughts/experience/advice about this it would be much appreciated
