'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?

I am VERY suspisious about this charity, if someone can tell me good thinhgs about them I would like to hear it. They seem to take stuff free then try to flog if for more than you could get it for new! Makes me think that charity starts at home..

they are rubbish we left lots of good furniture outside including a 3 year old table and 6 chairs in brilliant condition they said they would collect on a tuesday but they didnt when we called them they said we didnt want anything that you left out side (they could have called US to say this) then they said they would take it away for £20!

they suck! my folks got in touch with them cus apperently they do all sorts including gardening... they got them to quote how much to pull some hedges out our front garden and give it a quick dig over and rake...

so my folks payed them to come do it... they came, did a half arsed job... they just cut the hedges to ground level and covered them over with soil and burried a lot of the cuttings under the ground!

so my mum rang and complained, they came back and had another attempt... still didnt do what they'd agreed... finally they came back a 3rd time and finished it properly!

its run by english folks but all the workers they use are foreigners, most likely immigrants they're feeding? who knows...

I bought a settee from the Remar warehouse near the station recently - I was very pleased with it. The charity is overtly Christian but not a cult, and funds its work with the marginalised at home and overseas by refurbishing and selling donated furniture. There isn't a "convert or else" agenda, but they are pretty heavily into proselytism.

I've had a wander about in there. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something uncomfortable about it.

Actually, we bought a cupboard from there. It's now in the garage full of teethmarks :suspect:

I insisted we park round the corner (puzzled look from Mr Strix). Our negotiations with them included them agreeing to knock money off if we collected instead of them delivering. We were also wearing scruff. They offered to help us load the car, and Mr Strix went off to get the (then) nearly new Zafira. They seemed somewhat grumpy. :confused: I suspect the cupboard would have cost us more if they had seen the car first :suspect:

They collected some furniture from me recently. Because we were decorating we had already put the bed and wardrobe in the garage for them to collect. I have to say that when the 2 blokes arrived, I'm glad they were only going in my garage and not in the house. They couldn't speak English and, frankly, I found them strange. They did give me some literature about the charity, I wasn't right impressed. I only asked them to take the stuff as it saved me a trip to the tip!

From what I know of them they are a Spanish charity which is probably why they tend to mainly employ foreigners. I can't remember how I found that out - I probably asked them knowing me I'm nosy like that you see!:D

For a concern that makes it's money from three (?) second hand furniture shops, they seem to be able to employ a heck of a lot of workforce. Look in the shops, usually a handful of guys working there.

They painted the exterior of a friends house it is a terrace - five of them turned up!

(They put one huge thick coat of green paint on the woodwork - took months to dry) :hihi:

Is it a loophole? Immigrants can't work until they are processed, so are they able to 'volounteer' for this church charity to keep them occupied?

(just asking, so don't hang me for it)

I once paid for one of their services and they don't have insurance. They broke a household appliance, but I couldn't claim for the repair or replacement and they wanted nothing to do with it.
Not very happy with it, won't be going back to them again.

Ive been in there shop the one at the bottom of St Mary's gate and I must admit I found it to be a very strange experience I felt as though I was being watched all the time. Then got grunted at by three burly blokes playing some sort of card game found something we were looking for when we looked at the price left laughing they wanted a fortune for second hand furniture.

wont go back charity or not

i didnt no all this about remar i just thought it was a second hand shop BUT ... what i heard a year or so back makes sense now. where our old shop was up herdings apparently on the end was a remar ( now a gym) an old bloke that used to come in my shop for a chat told me he once went inside the remar and wanted to buy a clock they had but there was no one round so he stuck his head thru the back to shout for assistance and was gob smacked to see lots of sleeping bags and beddings all laid out on the floor he ses there was loads of em. the man who ran the shop shot out and shood him away very quickly, he also said that a few nights later he was looking out of his flat window in the early hours and saw a large remar lorry pull up the driver looked about before opening the back doors and then lots of foraign looking people got out :o

Remar are a Portuguese charity who believe that they rehabilitate people from substance dependency. Primarily supporting Portuguese people, they do support British and other nationalities as well. When they support people who have a home base in the UK, they move them to a Remar project some distance from their home base. Their belief is that you must break the individual from everything that they know, as their family bonds etc. were part of their life as a dependent substance user. In order to ensure that they do this effectively they withhold the individual's benefit book/other means of self support, they accompany them to statutory and health appointments to ensure the person is not in a position to discuss with professionals the support they recieve from Remar, and they ensure that the person's daily life is filled with work. Particularly they do not believe in drug assisted withdrawals from substances of addiction and therefore would not support someone in accessing medication which would help them deal with the pain of withdrawal, or block future cravings.
In my past life I have worked with around 15-20 people who came to Sheffield due to support offered by Remar, and based on my experience I certainly wouldn't be purchasing their gardening/removal/whatever services.

ive had dealings with them in the past passing on old furniture from removals i wouldnt go near them with a barge pole after some of the stories ive heard from customers.
If you have any old furniture give it to St Vincent De Paul furniture store on queens rd.
All the stuff they get they GIVE away to the needy and they will collect it.
The number is 0114 2500707 its run by nuns that is a bit scarey but they are nice and Greatfull which remar aint.

Originally posted by libuse
........ In order to ensure that they do this effectively they withhold the individual's benefit book/other means of self support
Do Remar get to 'claim' the state benefits of the people being rehabilitated, libuse?

I could hazard a guess, but that would only be based on what people have told me rather than something I know personally.
My understanding is that people claim their own benefits, but then pay for food and lodgings. My guess would be that this isn't entirely the case, and that in some situations benefits are "claimed" for people. But, as I said, that's something I couldn't evidence.

I had a friend who became a member of Remar and she seems to find it very fulfilling. I saw her a few years ago working in the shop they then had near the bottom of London road and of course asked how she was.doing.
She was living in a community house with a lot of others and did everything with other Remar people. I asked if she'd like to come round to meet my new dog as she was often a visitor at my house in the past and her answer suprised me. She wouldn't be allowed to and if she did go anywhere she had a 'chaperone'.
Needless to say I wasn't very impressed with this rather heavy 'shepherding' as my friend was not a recovering alcoholic or drug user.
On a different note Remar are getting more and more picky about what furniture they are prepared to take off your hands and I have got friends who have asked Remar to come and collect things only to have them turn up and turn their noses up at the stuff.

Their shop on St Mary's gate really spooks me - a great barn of a place with dodgy blokes huddled together in their den...

I would have nothing against them running it as a commercial business but i don't like the way people are persuaded to give things away in the name of charity when i have heard that anything of real value gets passed onto antique dealers in cosy little deals and the junk gets sold at top end prices at their shops to the public. It seems to have an awfully sinister air for a christian charity.

Originally posted by WallBuilder
[B]I had a friend who became a member of Remar and she seems to find it very fulfilling. I saw her a few years ago working in the shop they then had near the bottom of London road and of course asked how she was.doing.
She was living in a community house with a lot of others and did everything with other Remar people. I asked if she'd like to come round to meet my new dog as she was often a visitor at my house in the past and her answer suprised me. She wouldn't be allowed to and if she did go anywhere she had a 'chaperone'
Needless to say I wasn't very impressed with this rather heavy 'shepherding' as my friend was not a recovering alcoholic or drug user.

It seems to me from your post and libuse's post that Remar are a rather 'controlling' lot to say the least........

Originally posted by libuse
Remar are a Portuguese charity who believe that they rehabilitate people from substance dependency. Primarily supporting Portuguese people, they do support British and other nationalities as well. When they support people who have a home base in the UK, they move them to a Remar project some distance from their home base. Their belief is that you must break the individual from everything that they know, as their family bonds etc. were part of their life as a dependent substance user. In order to ensure that they do this effectively they withhold the individual's benefit book/other means of self support, they accompany them to statutory and health appointments to ensure the person is not in a position to discuss with professionals the support they recieve from Remar, and they ensure that the person's daily life is filled with work. Particularly they do not believe in drug assisted withdrawals from substances of addiction and therefore would not support someone in accessing medication which would help them deal with the pain of withdrawal, or block future cravings.
In my past life I have worked with around 15-20 people who
came to Sheffield due to support offered by Remar, and based on my experience I certainly wouldn't be purchasing their gardening/removal/whatever services.

Thanks libuse.

Do you know of anything regards policy of people once they are 'rehabilitated' and over their addiction?
Are they encouraged to go 'out into the big wide world' and get a life?
Or do they stay and live with/work for Remar?

I got into a conversation with the Remar staff in the Abbeeydale road shop and they said they were from Portugal. I thought this was a little strange at the time, but all is now revealed by libuse, i.e. Remar are a Portuguese charity. The other thing I noticed in this shop was that some of the furniture seemed to have come from the Netherlands - i.e. its not all second hand stuff sourced from the UK. I bought a bookcase from them. They will haggle on prices.

Strange place. I am sure they means test people as Strix inferred. I have never seen such crap being offered for sale, although this was a couple of years ago. Their decent stuff is way over-priced. I think it is a front for some kind of illicit activities.

Do all the people that go in to Remar come out?

Originally posted by WallBuilder
Remar are getting more and more picky about what furniture they are prepared to take off your hands and I have got friends who have asked Remar to come and collect things only to have them turn up and turn their noses up at the stuff.

I've had that experience too.

I also once saw a really nice chair in the shop on Abbeydale Road and stopped to have a look at it, thinking if its anything less than £100 I might get it. Needless to say, at over £300 it stayed where it was.

Wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

No experience with them and so no comment.

But to keep the facts straight, a bit of Googling will show that Remar International was founded in and is still based in Spain, not Portugal.
Close, but not quite there. (..... and probably does not affect what libuse was trying to suggest).

Web site is here:
http://www.remar.org/english/principal.htm

A worker's news/begging letter is here:
http://www.crisis-centre.org.uk/news/bigwood_0404.htm

remar uk, opposite jacksons and liberty works (student accom) is or seems very dodgy.

we've often seen 3 or 4 vans full of people getting out, very late at night. these are all "non english" people.

granted they may be legal immigrants but it all seems very dodgy.

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.

most of these people who get out of the vans are then quickly led into the church type building right next to it.

all seems very dodgy to me, we have said so since being at liberty in september.

Originally posted by Vini
we've often seen 3 or 4 vans full of people getting out, very late at night.
Well, at the very least, travelling by this method is an offence

Originally posted by Vini
remar uk, opposite jacksons and liberty works (student accom) is or seems very dodgy.

we've often seen 3 or 4 vans full of people getting out, very late at night. these are all "non english" people.

granted they may be legal immigrants but it all seems very dodgy.

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.

most of these people who get out of the vans are then quickly led into the church type building right next to it.

all seems very dodgy to me, we have said so since being at liberty in september.

well that backs up what the old fella told me then eh?
with all thats been said i think remar needs investigating, they sound * very * dodgy :(

:suspect: Anyone ever seen Soylent Green??? :suspect:

But to keep the facts straight, a bit of Googling will show that Remar International was founded in and is still based in Spain, not Portugal.


Many apologies; the people I have worked with had all told me the organisation were Portuguese, and I hadn't checked. Maybe because of the number of Portuguese people they provide services to, they had jumped to this conclusion? Sorry for my inaccuracy.

As to the question about onward options for Remar's clients, again I must profess ignorance. All the ex - clients I have dealt with had exited Remar "mid programme". Who knows, maybe they have an absolutely fantastic after care support service..........??

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 :loopy: :suspect:

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.

'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.

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.:mad:

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

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

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

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.

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''''''''''''''''''

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.

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.

That would be this report:
http://streetkidnews.blogsome.com/1997/07/

Including this section:

A touchstone of the REMAR approach is "the rod." The boys we spoke with had these reactions to the word "REMAR": "beatings," "baseball bat," "aluminum baseball bat," "broomstick," "firewood," "isolation room," "broken finger," and "broken ribs." The use of physical punishment and punitive isolation against children is strictly forbidden under international law. Despite widespread reports of these abuses, no Guatemalan authority is supervising the actions of REMAR: not the Human Rights Ombudsman, not the office of Treatment and Guidance for Minors (Tratamiento y Orientación de Menores), which is under the First Lady and is directly responsible for the detention centers, and not the First Lady herself. To the contrary, the realm of REMAR was recently expanded - until the summer of 1996, they were responsible for only one of the boys’s centers.

I hope they have improved in the intervening years.

I can't believe things like this are still going on :( I remember reading about something similar in George Orwell's 'Down and out in Paris and London' where the homeless people were forced to pray before they were allowed food and the people who ran the place locked them in their rooms for an entire weekend's stay. I hope things have progressed since then at least.
I do know of a charity called Emmaus Sheffield who have a similar method of helping homeless people to the Remar system (ie reconstructing furniture, gardening etc) but they are not faith-based and have no political or corporate agenda. I'd much rather support these guys than any charity that preys upon helpless people with a forced agenda.

http://www.emmaus-sheffield.org.uk/

hello my name is danny and i spent 1 year in remar in spain. I am an ex user, and it was hard over there but all i can say is i am clean now for 6 years and remar was there for me. I am not part of remar anymore but it put me in good sted and opened my eyes to see a diffrent type of life. all i can say is it got me clean!

you people dont have a clue all you can do speculate. remar uk, opposite jacksons and liberty works (student accom) is or seems very dodgy.

we've often seen 3 or 4 vans full of people getting out, very late at night. these are all "non english" people.

granted they may be legal immigrants but it all seems very dodgy.

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.

most of these people who get out of the vans are then quickly led into the church type building right next to it.

all seems very dodgy to me, we have said so since being at liberty in september.

hello my name is danny and i spent 1 year in remar in spain. I am an ex user, and it was hard over there but all i can say is i am clean now for 6 years and remar was there for me. I am not part of remar anymore but it put me in good sted and opened my eyes to see a diffrent type of life. all i can say is it got me clean!

Hi Danny, I was just wondering how did you find this site?

We seem to have gotten a fair few new members as a result of this thread :suspect:

I once had a look round the Remar shop and couldn't help but notice the extortionate prices they were charging for tat, there was even a treadmill that was priced dearer than the same model brand new in Argos!!!

Personally i'd avoid

I've had people tell me they've escaped from Remar in Sheffield.

i found this site by typeing in remar.

i found this site by typeing in remar.

Why?

I thought you'd been clean for 6 years and were no longer involved with them:confused:

i am not involved with them any more i looked at there site to see how things where, as remar was a big part of my life (as in getting off drugs)

Remar sell good quality furniture that has been DONATED but sell them for astronomical prices.
If you are looking for good quality furniture use emmuas on blast lane. They are a charity dedicated to helping homeless people regardless of age race or religion.
They have some great stuff in at real secondhand prices.
http://www.emmaus-sheffield.org.uk/

I am VERY suspisious about this charity, if someone can tell me good thinhgs about them I would like to hear it. They seem to take stuff free then try to flog if for more than you could get it for new! Makes me think that charity starts at home..

Isn't that how raffles/tombola stalls work?

Isn't that how raffles/tombola stalls work?

No, you buy a ticket in raffles/tombola, usually for a cheap price, for a chance of winning the prize/item