At least I didn't give the gentleman with 5 languages BushBaby's gold lamé MC Hammer pants because.............well , I thought there might be a dissonance with his current occupation..........
But in all seriousness his eyes lit up when he saw the red golfing trousers. My guess is, during his successful time he was probably quite a snazzy dresser & this brought back the hope that maybe he could be again, some day. When I saw him on Tuesday he was wearing one of the donated pairs ( a sedate khaki pair) & looked much better.
A lot of this has to be geared to valuing the person not just focussing on the problem. Might be bearing fruit because he asked me for some books in English to keep his brain active: he now has The Power & the Glory by British author Graham Greene (those who have read it can guess why) as well as a copy of yours truly's & a request to produce a verbal critique next week which I hope he will find empowering because by doing so he'll be helping me improve.