Amsterdam alcoholics given beer to clear litter: Will Work For Booze

Leave it to the Dutch to come up with a new slogan “If you can’t beat ’em, employee ’em.” It may not be a pun which they have come with in word, but certainly in deed. The charity group known as “The Rainbow Foundation Project” has started a novel program to employ people to clean the streets of Amsterdam, an international city with a population in excess of 2.3 million people.

The job doesn’t pay much, but the perks are good. It appears that the main qualification is to be an alcoholic. Those who do the work are paid a modest ten Euros for a day’s work which starts promptly at 9:00AM and lasts until 3:30PM.

“Lots of us haven’t had any structure in our lives for years, we just don’t know what it is, and so this is good for us,” said one man identified as Frank, although he admitted it’s unlikely he will drink less.

“When we leave here, we go to the supermarket and transform the 10 euros we earned into beers.”

In addition to the modest stipend, workers receive rolling tobacco and five cans of beer. It has not been reported if having a hangover is an acceptable reason for calling in sick.

“We need alcohol to function, that’s the disadvantage of chronic alcoholism.” Frank said.

The objective of the plan is to get the alcoholics to busily engaged doing something productive as opposed to loitering in city parks and causing trouble.

A spokesman for the Rainbow Foundation Project likens to the program to the clinics where heroin addicts can frequent to get free heroin to shoot up as opposed to committing crimes to feed their habit.

On The Web:
Alcoholics paid in BEER to clean the streets in Amsterdam in government-funded project
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509983/Alcoholics-paid-BEER-clean-streets-Amsterdam-government-funded-project.html

Alcoholics paid in BEER to clean the streets in Amsterdam in government-funded project
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509983/Alcoholics-paid-BEER-clean-streets-Amsterdam-government-funded-project.html