Published on 5th December 2013 | Part of Issue 853 | Print Friendly Version

V FOR VIRTUOUS

Anonymous hand out clothes to the homeless

It's not all Guy Fawkes masks, hacking and and letting off fireworks at Buck House y'know. After the fun and games of the Million Mask March, Anonymous have turned their attention to homelessness , with the launch of #OPSafewinter.

 

Autonomous groups of people are raising money and distributing sleeping bags for the homeless. So far groups are active in Liverpool, Manchester, London, Cardiff, Portsmouth and Southampton. Other groups are gearing up on social media.

 

So far the London lot have to raised money to buy sleeping bags and have been distributing them to the London homeless. Some are doing it by facebook and word of mouth, getting a group of volunteers together to help hand them out. It's early days yet, some only took it on late so there's still quite a bit to sort out, but they have a some volunteers already, and a donation of a more sleeping bags so it seems to be looking quite positive so far!

 

One volunteer told Schnews: "The reason I'm doing it is simple - to help the homeless have something warm to sleep in and to try to prevent the deaths through hypothermia that happen on the streets every winter. The new law that makes squatting empty residential buildings illegal has also worsened the problem and it's made life even more difficult for the members of society who are the most vulnerable. So the bottom line is a warm sleeping bag can literally be the difference between life and death."

 

We managed to get a few words from the Facebook page admin (who funnily enough wanted to remain Anonymous): “What we are doing is organising local people to find out the homeless situation in their local area. Once they know the problem then you can look at ways to help. We understand more people are on the streets this year than any other, due to many economic and sociopolitical reasons, (everyone has their own story) this is not just UK but everywhere, Anonymous is global and the thing they do best is move quickly and share information. This is a perfect reason to address the homeless situation and raise awareness. How? Social media, share links and create media of our own, we have not relied to date on outside media but created our own.”

 

On the other side of the spectrum we did a short interview with the guy who started the Operation :

 

Q: What is #OPSafewinter?

A: OpSafeWinter was started to bring awareness of the plight of many thousands of homeless people on the streets this winter. It is also a call to everyone everywhere to root out whatever they have to help battle the cold. So we're after sleeping bags, gloves, hats, socks, food and anything else they may need to make living on the streets a little less difficult.

Q: Do Anonymous plan to make similar events in the future?

A: Yes, I will be but Anonymous can be anyone and everyone. If some one shares in the idea of Anonymous then they can start an 'op' and gain interest and help from other anons. That's one of the reasons why Anonymous works.

Q: How does someone get involved?

A: A great way to find out what anons are currently organising is to Join Anonymous UK on facebook or get involved with the chat on Twitter. They then could help organise current events or if they are passionate about a cause that isn't being discussed they could also create their own event.

 

Contact Information

 

Join them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/UKanonymous/

 

Or get involved with the discussion by tweeting #OPSafewinter