Social mission

DoucheFLUX is a day centre for homeless and destitute people. It focuses on human beings and their dignity, and offers a range of services (showers, a launderette, lockers, psychological and medical care, etc.) and activities.

What does DoucheFlux do?

• Services

Showers are certainly DoucheFLUX’s flagship service. Taking a shower is generally the first step towards regaining your dignity by taking care of your own body (again). On average, about a hundred people come to our center every day to use one of the 20 shower cabins.

In addition to the showers, we offer a range of services attending to other aspects of a person’s well-being: a launderette, hair-dressing, manicure, pedicure, a clothes bank, psychological and medical care, yoga, birthday parties, etc. We also go out to meet people living on the street.

•  Activities & courses

All DoucheFLUX activities are organised by teams which include people who are destitute or who have experience of living on the street. Not only do these activities help the under-privileged speak out, they also aim to raise public awareness about the issues of precarity and homelessness, rising above the often destructive clichés and prejudices.

DoucheFLUX Magazine, DoucheFLUX On Air (“La Voix de la Rue” broadcast on Radio Panik (105.4FM)), DoucheFLUX Film-Debates, DoucheFLUX Meets Schools (meeting secondary-school students), Think Tank, Outside! (a board game about life on the street), sport activities, etc.

• Advocacy & Amareness 

Helping homeless people is one thing, tackling the issue of homelessness is another. However, these two are not mutually exclusive, on the contrary.

If we accept that homelessness is a crime against humanity, and not just the sad destiny of a few thousand people in Brussels, and understand that the eradication of homelessness is not a utopian dream but a realistic goal, provided we have the political will and allocate sufficient resources to deal with it, then we must do more than just react to the urgent situation of those in need. We also need to bring about a change in mentality.

The task is colossal. Because prejudices are ingrained, simplistic views are all too easy to adopt, and it is common to lump ideas together and make sweeping generalisations. Homeless people are not lesser beings but fully grown and unique individuals, just like those who have a roof over their head. The hardest thing to (get people to) understand is a simple saying which runs deeper than it appears: “Homeless people are just like everyone else.” Accepting this in theory does not help, if we do not draw the resulting conclusions and act on them, in the fields of social work and social policies.

It is in this spirit that DoucheFLUX is building up, in various ways, the "advocacy and awareness-raising" part of its activities.

How can you help?

DoucheFLUX needs your donations in order to:

• cover the annual operating cost of €580 000

• investing €2 350 in the production of benches (plus a storage system) by the eco-social enterprise Ressource Lab
• financing the production costs of a photography project (€5 000): a volunteer photographer will follow the daily routines of 8 people living or having lived on the street (this is the first stage of a long-term project with the ultimate aim of creating a photo exhibition to be used as an awareness-raising tool). Some of the money will be used to pay the costs of the destitute people being photographed.
• financing maintenance contract fire prevention system (1000€/annum)

DoucheFLUX needs volunteers in Belgium for:

• Welcoming / listening to / supporting beneficiaries
• Logistic assistance
• Leading activities
• Campaign and event organisation 
• Information and awareness-raising
• Medical expertise
• DIY, maintenance
• Accounting
• Citizen service
• Fundraising
• Legal advice
• Translation: Dutch / English / Arabic
• Transport / mobility of beneficiaries
• Webmastering and ICT
• Other: bicycle couriers, wellness services (hairdressing, pedicure, manicure, facial care, massage, yoga, etc...), communication 

DoucheFLUX also needs equipment:

• Clothes/ household linen
• Hygiene / cleaning products
• Computers and office equipment
• Medical equipment
• Sport gear
• Sewing machines and needlework equipment

Update 2018