sleep out on George street - Rocktrust charity

Last friday, more than a hundred pupils from the sixth form, participated a charity activity, called sleep out on George street, I was one of the participants. The event was organised by an organisation called Rock trust, it is one of Edinburgh’s oldest charities working with people who are homeless. The target of the activity is to increase awareness of the society on homeless people, they are a part of the Social vulnerable groups, and they need our help.


In this activity my friend and I had the chance to experience the feeling of being homeless people. Friday night, we walked from the school to the sleep out location, we were holding food, paper boxes, thermal packs, sleep bags.

As we have arrived, there was smattering of light rain and it was really cold, nearly 4 Celsius. I started to get the feeling of homeless, and realised how lucky I am. However, we were much better than real homeless people. There was free coffee, hot chocolate and biscuits provided, and we were allowed to order pizza, which was quite decent. It was so hard to sleep, my sleeping bag and paper box was soaking wet, rain kept dropping on to my head, which I found it really irritating. It was a tough and arduous night for most of us, we are juveniles who have barely seen what is going on in the society, and we live in shelters, studying in private school, having good food everyday.

Reflection:
Sometimes, the world is really not fair, some people are born to be rich, healthy and living in a pleasant environment, nonetheless, some people are unfortunate, homeless, born with illness, living in poverty. I believe I am one the more fortunate ones, having my parents paying 20 thousand pounds to study abroad, having shelters, when it is cold, I can turn on the radiator. This  time I have experienced the way that homeless people live their life, without shelter while it is raining, can't afford to buy new clothes to overcome the desperate and cold winters. This activity has quite a big influence on me, I will treasure every moment and everything I have right now. Every time, when I want to waste food, waste electricity, I would think about these unfortunate people, this experience. Throughout this trip I have under taken new challenges, worked collaboratively with others, while I was locating my sleeping bag, considered the ethical implications of my actions and engaged with issues of global importance.


CAS hours completes: 9 and a half hours (service)