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The young man in the following article is supported by Liz Brown, the wife of one of our Ministers, Michael Brown. He has fallen on hard times but refused to be defeated and is now helping others in a remarkable way. He needs our prayers to be able to keep going the right way, maybe he will become a Christian, I hope so.
The Road Ahead of Addiction
Dean Sawyer's Story
Hello my names Dean and I want to share my story with you. I came to a place at starting PositiveCause as a result of my own story and my own background really. Not to go into boring specifics around crime, drugs and prison sentences I spent 2yrs in prison as a result of my addiction and committing crime as a result of my addiction. I was released from prison on the 28th December 06, I went a rehab facility in Exeter due to being banned from Bristol temporarily as part of my parole conditions. One of my main priorities is making amends and being a productive father to my son who was in foster care and 8yrs old at the time, I took action around that and visiting him regularly. I have also continued to educate myself further in college. Once I had stability in my life, realised I wouldn't use drugs again and able to progress further in my life I decided to start my own
business which was car valeting business. During that time I started doing some fund raising for my son's school. Coming from a place I have been from in my life being self-centred and quite selfish I decided it was time to help others and as my son's school (Woodstock school, Henbury) has had a really big impact on his life so I thought I'd help them out. One thing that really sticks out in my mind was me not being the kind to give out money and there I am feeling great because I had done the opposite to what I would normally do by donating £1,800 to the school. This without going into all the boring stuff was the beginning of
PositiveCauses and how it came about.
From this point all I really want to do was to benefit family, friends, people in general as well as myself and all this has been possible through PositiveCauses, helping me to move on further and to be able to do greater things in my life as well as be a positive image to aiding people from my background. I've been able to give work to people from similar backgrounds to me but not just people with troubled history but to people in general as well. I have seen first-hand some of the benefit PositiveCauses has had on some of the people, just by offering work, getting involved in the community and interacting with other people. Also as part of wanting to give back to the community we do a "homeless support run" giving out basic essential items and food, this too is a background from where I once came from and see great benefits in the eyes of the homeless that help.
PositiveCauses has moved on, starting from my flat in Exeter with about 10
employees to later becoming a limited company and widening our field by
opening up an office in Bristol, being able to offer work to more people and have a bigger impact on others that come to us for work or support. We now do 4 "homeless support runs" around the Southwest in Plymouth, Exeter and Bristol. The benefit of this on my employees is that they can get involved on a voluntary (unpaid) and give out the packs to help the homeless get on by, speak to them and get some understanding of the homeless background which is a great benefit on the lives of the employees. This also shows that to do great things don't mean you have to be Christian a lot of our staff are from different backgrounds and take pride in what they do. I take part in the homeless run in Bristol as well as living on the streets for a time in my life I have run into people I used to know
..
One of the biggest impacts I have seen PositiveCauses have is on my own life by giving me focus and structure in my life and on that note I say thanks for helping me to help others to help myself.
www.positivecauses.co.uk
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