Back in the days before currency was invented and when capitalism was just a glint in a morbidly obese American’s eye, people used to barter for services and goods.
If you did a good week’s work, your boss would give you a buxom virgin or something. We saw it on the History Channel so it must be true. Actually, come to think of it, it was the sci-fi channel and it was a movie called ‘Emanuelle’s Erotic Journey Through Time’. Still, the point remains.
This ancient custom has been brought back to the modern world thanks to some smart-thinking government chiefs in Holland.
Working on a system of “you do something for us, we’ll exchange it for something you want”, a group of alcoholics in Amsterdam are being paid five cans of beer a day in return for cleaning the city’s streets.
The private, but government-funded, Rainbow Group Foundation, employs two groups of 10 men who work three days a week picking up litter.
Each day they get paid €10 and are given one hot meal, half a packet of cigarettes and five cans of beer.
Karel Slinger, 50, said he used to spend his days in a nearby park getting drunk. Now he picks up litter while he’s at it.
“Yes, of course, in the park it is nice weather and you just drink a lot of beer,” he explained. “Now you come here and you have something to do. I can’t just sit still. I want to do something.”
Programme director Gerri Holterman, from the Rainbow Group Foundation, said: “I think we are already successful, when we get them to drink less during the day. This is a start to go towards other projects and get maybe another kind of job.”
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