Remar UK - what are your thoughts?

[sheff_minx]

Have seen the same things as Vini.

 

Granted we live in the same accommodation but they have been seperate sightings (3 or 4 each).

 

The men there used to make me and a few others feel very uncomfortable about picking our way through the furniture they display on the street up to the point where we eventually found an alternative way through a back-alley in order to avoid them!!

 

Seems very dodgy! Especially when you read everything others have said...

 

 

 

Also hypocritical that they won't collect furniture that's been outside, yet will not bring anything (including sofa's) inside when raining

[hj dary]

Originally posted by Vini

the remar workers do their best to hide what theyre doing too like parking with their vans door in their warehouse. so we cannot see what theyre taking out.

 

 

Backing a van right up to the door dosn't mean he's up to something.

 

Maybe they're just lazy, like me.....the closer you park your van to the task you're dealing with , the less walking you have to do !!

 

Or he might just be a show off.... theres no one out there that can reverse a vehicle like a van driver...most of us can drive better backwards than we can forwards.

 

Its just a shame that the Traffic Police insist on you driving forwards on the M1 'cuase if we all drove the other way us van drivers would be the safest group on the road!!

 

Im not sticking up for any one here by the way and Ive been in there my self and thought it was a little iffy but little things like this can get blown out of all proportion.

[migl22]

'Remar UK - Christian Centre for Help and Rehabilitation'

 

I think most people are aware of them, they will take away your old furniture, paint your house or garden fence etc.

 

The profits they make go to helping people with alcohol or drug addiction rehabilitate but only on condition the person convert or commit to Christianity ( not very 'Christian' is it - surely a Christian attitude would be to help unconditionally.....)

 

Are they a 'cult?'

 

Does anyone know of anyone who has being 'helped' by Remar for problems with drug or alcohol addiction?

 

Or did they just do a good job painting your house?

 

 

Hi I have had past experiance with Remar UK, what i am about to say Remar will never admit to, i used to be in fellowship with them i have been to their church in sheffield and nottingham and have observed how they live, and what happens to the members the following statement i will make may put them under a cult category but i speak from experiance.

 

1. (Food) All members are dependent on food donations, many members get a lack of protein and they get fed on a diet of cakes and buns, mostly junk food. One time I was at the meeting in Sheffield and found that as a visiting leader was taken to eat out at a restaurant whilst everyone else was being poorly feed on chicken wings cooked in pasta (no vegetables) stale donuts and water. The diet was really lacking. This type of diet is typical of many cults, it was virtually the same when my father joined a similar cult back in the '70's. Such poor diet keeps the members malleable and under the control of the leadership. their was no time for independant thought,

 

2. (sleep deprivation) a lot of the members work from very early in the morning until late at night. They did not receive proper Biblical instruction (in fact the local leader at the time admitted that he didn't know very much about the Bible at all.) After a long day of very hard work this so-called Bible study could be from 9 pm onwards. Most of the members were tired all the time often fighting the sleep. The members seemed to have little time to think. Afterwards they went to bed and got up between 5 - 6 am giving them 5 - 6 hours of sleep. They worked 6 days a week, some times 7 after church.

 

3. (indoctrination) Members were indoctrinated to work on the basis that if they didn't work they wouldn't eat. Most of the focus seemed to be on recruitment and fund raising. Most of the members seemed to come from Portugal and spoke little or no English (although some did come from other countries.)

 

Psychological coercion seemed to be how they recruited, indoctrinated, and retained its members. My father had been told scare stories of what had happened to people who left the organisation (ie; death via AIDS.) Members who joined were not expected to leave Remar, but to continue as full-time members. The rehabilitation programme was not geared towards anyone leaving the group, gaining employment or entering into further education. Remar claimed that they were turning people into "useful members of society," whereas it appeared that they were actually being turned into "useful members of Remar." In conversations with members who admitted that they wanted to leave Remar but felt that they were in a situation that they would be put back onto the streets. Members have little else to look forward to other than continued membership. Remar seemed to believe in the axium, 'the end justifies the means' in order to solicit funds, recruit new people particularly drug addicts.

 

4. (High Dependency) Drug addicts, and alcoholics seem to exchange their particular dependency from one form to another one of high dependency on the group.

 

5. (Benefits) Though on the outwardly they seem like a well represented Charity, under the surface it is a whole different story. The group's income did not benefit its members or society. People were often poorly treated, poorly fed and the rehabilitated members are often kept in the group out of fear.

 

6. (Communal living.) All members live in a commune, even after they have been "rehabilitated." The leaders kept a close eye on all the members monitoring their movements.

 

7 other characteristics

 

Members could leave but on the understanding that they would receive no help once they stepped out of the door, they were on their own. No one was expected, nor allowed to get normal employment. Remar makes much of it's use of "voluntary" workers (especially on it's annual statement to the British Charity Commission,) however it seems to me that these are more like forced labourers than true volunteers.

 

It appears that the common practice with new recruits is to transport them abroad to countries where they have little or no knowledge of the language. This creates insecurity and a feeling of even greater dependency on the group.

 

Average age at the point of recruitment is in the 20's.

 

Registered as a religious group.

 

Appear to offer association with a group interested in making the world a better place via political, spiritual or other means.

 

If I remember any thing else I will post it on here.

 

I am a cult investigator, but i do requre more info if any one can get that to me.

[andrew_g]

I agree with a lots of people on this forum, they SUCK, I arranged for them to collect 4 dining chairs but they never showed up to collect and didn't phone to explain why.

[FilipeF]

:mad:hallo i be en remar if sommeone need more informacie this is my mail afsferreira@live.nl

[rubydazzler]

:mad:hallo i be en remar if sommeone need more informacie this is my mail afsferreira@live.nl

Hiya FilipeF, welcome to SF. Are you a member of Remar right now, or an escapee? What do you think of them, are they a good help to people?

[kevc]

been to sheffield for 1 week after evacuation from london with no worning my thoughts are that if you dont speak spanish or portuguese you are a slave of this cult my wife followed me to nottingham and stayed for a few hours before witnessing the so called honest christian leader pay a massive amount of money into his wifes bank account at nat west bank in nottingham this worried us both and we have had our fingers burnt and i have reported this sick cult to the police who have said they will investigate further so please help close this evil cult down

[Berberis]

I bought a second hand office chair from their about 6 months ago. They wanted almost the price of one new. I negotiated him down, which he did not like and when I got it home it was bent! I’m now sat on said bent chair with an additional fault. The air canister for raising the height crapped out too.

 

I can safely say (with my chin firmly on my desk feeling like a hobbit in the prancing pony) that I will not be buying anything from them again.

[kevc]

Hiya FilipeF, welcome to SF. Are you a member of Remar right now, or an escapee? What do you think of them, are they a good help to people?

 

escapee and discusted i witnessed a fraud and it has been passed on to police. I had no counceling or medical attention whilst i witnessed these speak in portuguese and spanish taking the pi''''''''''''''''''

[pammyme]

REMAR is indeed a cult, and doing some very bad things with vulnerable children and families in Africa. I observed their operations very closely over a 4 year period in Mozambique, and eventually filed a complaint with government social services and UNICEF.

 

The missionaries are absolutely unqualified to be undertaking ANY programs for children. They operate so-called "orphanages" that are in fundamental violation of universally accepted standards of care, they withhold essential medical care and psycho-social support from needy children and mothers, they operate on a shoestring--begging for donations and using their pool of "saved souls" to do most of the labor (sorting the huge container-loads of used clothing, furniture and other goods they receive from overseas and re-sell), and are self-isolating and secretive into the bargain about everything from finances (where does all the money go??) to what goes on behind the high walls of their "rehabilitation" homes. (More appropriately, they should be termed indoctrination centers.) I know what goes on in these and it is damaging and dangerous.

 

I pity some of the missionaries, all former hard-core drug addicts, particularly the women, who are treated like mindless handmaidens of their husbands. Everyone works very hard on putting and keeping in place a rigid system of physical and mind control over helpless people who are reminded in powerful ways how grateful they should be for a bed and some food... and little else.

 

Enough said for now. My advice: stay away from any involvement with this group! Understand that their work in "developing countries" can and does carry on because of lax oversight by authorities and a general climate of neglect (particularly in Africa). REMAR, by the way, was named in a Human Rights Watch report in the late 90s for its grossly abusive treatment of children in its re-hab/detention centers in Guatemala.