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Edinburgh: Youth homelessness charity

16 October 2020

Unite supports youth homelessness charity in Edinburgh

 

Unite Students first established a relationship with The Rock Trust, Scotland’s youth-specific homelessness charity, when it was selected as the city’s charity of the year in 2018.

 

The Rock Trust aims to end youth homelessness in Scotland by ensuring that every young person has access to expert youth specific services to assist them to avoid, survive and move on from homelessness. The charity advises, educates and supports young people to enable them to build the personal skills and resources required to make a positive and healthy transition to adulthood. They also work to ensure that the public, policy makers, commissioners and practitioners understand the issues, make decisions and take action which will end youth homelessness.

 

The relationship has grown year on year with Unite employees supporting a range of fundraising initiatives. This included The Sleep Out, which saw four team members spending a night on the streets in Edinburgh’s St Andrew’s Square.

 

Jennifer Finley, Unite’s Service and Sales Advisor said:

 

“The reality of the experience hit in the morning when we each walked into our warm homes and realised how lucky we are that we don’t have to do that every night. I think we all came away wanting to do more to help.”

 

From this initial engagement, support of the charity has grown to include volunteer days packing and delivering Christmas presents, charitable donations, in-kind gifts, as well as fundraising with three of Unite’s team members partaking in their first 10km run to raise money and awareness.

 

The team has also participated in virtual running events to raise money throughout the lockdown period to help the charity recuperate vital funds which are normally raised through events that have been cancelled due to Covid-19.