Christmas-time at Crisis

Last week at Crisis we had our members’ Christmas party which was a great success! The party-goers were participants at The Learning Zone, which Veena described in her last post, as well as other members who access Crisis’ services in London.

Christmas at Crisis is a very busy time when we pool all our resources to give the best Christmas experience for people who are currently or have previously been homeless. Christmas is traditionally the time you spend with your family, and for our members it can be particularly distressing as many do not have this.

For the party we had a cross-cultural Christmas quiz, mince pies, dinner and most importantly – karaoke! Music has a special place in my heart and our members loved having a sing song in front of each other. Music has a special quality to transcend language and cultural barriers and it was a great opportunity for our members to express themselves.

One especially beautiful moment was when the whole group joined in to sing Happy Christmas, War is Over. There were so many cultural groups there but for those three minutes we were as one.

So have a brilliant Christmas from all of us at Crisis and here’s hoping for a great 2011.

- Jagtar Behal