The battle against homelessness waged by a local Rastafarian group has grown to a new phase with the start of a fund raising campaign.

The Rastafarian Community Programme -- a registered charity -- started a fund raising campaign which coordinators believe will go a long way to assisting the more than 40 people in its files.

This includes six people currently living in a shelter in a borrowed building on Parson's Road, Pembroke.

Organisers Sister Pat and Ras Dewey spoke to The Royal Gazette over the weekend about the RCP and its programme of relief for the less fortunate.

"What we would really like to see is a building,'' said Sister Pat, a member of the Programme's board. "For the homeless, stability is important.'' Using the Rastafarian vernacular, she added: "We want people to overstand that we started the shelter for two people.'' "But when we went to pick them up there were three car loads more,'' she said. "How could we turn them all away?'' Both Sister Pat and Ras Dewey and others in the organisation have spent their own money running the shelter and other programmes which reach out to the homeless and the nearly homeless.

The 40 listed people are not necessarily Rastafarians themselves and among those living in the shelter, most are elderly.

But residency in their home comes with responsibilities, including mandatory savings and cleanliness while those that can afford to, must pay $20 a week for room and board.

Individual RCP members have been giving away food for years before starting the organisation.

In addition to the shelter, the RCP offers in-house care for the elderly, sick, and invalid, a short-term day-care service for children, and distributes clothes and food to the homeless.

It also runs its "Off the Wall Programme'' which puts businesses and others in contact with the unemployed -- particularly skilled workers -- who have stopped looking for regular work.

Every third Sunday, the RCP serves dinner at the Bermuda Industrial Union headquarters to the Islands' homeless.

In addition to the BIU, the RCP get significant support for its programme from wholesalers Butterfield and Vallis, the C-Mart, Supermart, and Lindo's supermarkets, who all give food to the cause.

The list of supporters also includes Zaki's Bakery, Metro Mineral Water Company, Trinity Chicken, Degraff's Lunch Wagon and the Pie Factory.

Community activist Barbara Ball is also a member of the team leading the RCP -- despite being Roman Catholic.

"She came to me and said how could she help run a Rastafarian organisation as she was Catholic,'' Ras Dewey said. "But I told her we all serve the same God. We want to thank her wholeheartedly.'' The shelter is housed in a building owned by Dr. Clarke Godwin, who offered it rent free to the group.

Dr. Godwin promised a three-month warning before taking possession of the building at any time in the future.

A sensitive issue for the RCP is a negative perception some people have of Rastafarians, which Sister Pat and Ras Dewey say is unfounded.

"We haven't got a lot of that,'' Ras Dewey said. "But there is one company that flatly refused us. We don't hold it against them.'' He added: "Their perception of Rastafari will change. There are several white organisations that will help us, yes.'' Speaking about why they continue the uphill battle against poverty, Sister Pat said: "We do it because His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie said we have to be mothers to the motherless and father to the fatherless.'' "It is our responsibility to do this, we're doing God's work,'' she added.

"Somebody has to help these people up when they are down.'' Ras Dewey can be contacted by pager on 298-2871 and messages for Sister Pat can be left at 292-6608.

The RCP's permanent phone number is out of service because the money earmarked for it in recent months has been used for emergency purposes.

On Friday evening, the RCP will hold a "culture and conscious'' Reggae session at the Spinning Wheel Nightclub, to raise funds for its programme.