Dear Friend,
Have you ever felt that you don’t belong anywhere? That there’s no place where you can feel safe, and no one has your back? This feeling might only be a momentary nightmare for you, but for many homeless young people it is an everyday reality and a permanent condition: there really is no place they can call home, and there’s no one they can turn to. These unfortunate children and young adults have absolutely no support system, and they live a life without the nurturing love that most of us take for granted.
There are far too many of our young people living in the streets or in care who have been kicked out of their parents’ houses, or fled their homes because of abuse. Their feeling of loneliness and abandonment soars during the Christmas period when instead of gathering with loved ones for holiday celebrations, they are cold and alone in the streets of our cities.
Safe haven at a hostel
Last Christmas, fifteen-year-old Kirsty arrived at an HYP hostel with nothing. Trembling with fear, Kirsty was extremely distressed and it was clear that she was in emotional and physical pain. We gave her food and extra clothes, and put her up in a warm room where she could finally lie down and rest. Despite our comfort and reassurance, Kirsty was still not ready to open up about her trauma. It was only later that she could tell us her story.
Three years earlier, Kirsty’s mother had had a nervous breakdown and tried to commit suicide, and it became clear that she was too mentally and emotionally unstable to look after her daughter. Kirsty then had no choice other than to live with her father. He had a history of violence, and it wasn’t long before he began to beat Kirsty regularly. One day she was beaten so badly that she ended up in hospital with traumatic injuries. Scared of her father, Kirsty chose not to go home after she was released from the hospital. Living on the streets seemed safer than being at home with a violent parent. Before arriving at the HYP hostel, Kirsty had been through a lot, and the secure environment of the hostel gave her a glimpse of how it would feel to always be safe and looked after.
Help us look after them on Christmas Day
At Help a Young Person we reach out to these vulnerable children and young adults aged 8–30 at times when they need support most, by providing them with a safe place to stay, giving them a box of essentials and offering them opportunities to develop mind, body and spirit. Every Christmas we would also like to give an extra box of Christmas gifts to every young person who stays with us. You can make this Christmas a memorable one for a vulnerable young person. By buying a Christmas Box for only £25 you can help them experience something they won’t otherwise have: this gesture can make them feel loved, at least on Christmas Day.
Each item in the box is a useful essential, like some warm clothes for the cold winter days, packs of tea and coffee to comfort themselves with a hot drink, phone cards, stamps and toiletries. The package also includes a wrapped Christmas present for that extra-special Christmas glow!
Your long-term support can help them fulfil their potential
But after Christmas is over, a sense of belonging, feeling safe and secure, and a place you can call home is still just a dream for these homeless youths like Kirsty. These distressing feelings of insecurity make it extremely difficult for them to cope with the challenges and hardships of growing up, so they quite often have low self-esteem, little motivation for education and no real sense of purpose. Because of their vulnerable mental and emotional state, they can easily fall prey to the influence of bad company: gangs, drug dealers or pimps. Life on the streets without any support system can be a living hell.
With the help of regular donations we can keep providing these vulnerable young people with long-term opportunities to develop their skills and abilities through education and training, and by helping them to settle in a safe, permanent environment, so that eventually they can fulfil their potential and leave their troubled past behind.
Help a Young Person has been helping homeless young people since 1958 and works with experts from the social care, counselling, education and training sectors. With your help, we can put hundreds more homeless young adults through education and training every year, while also providing them with temporary accommodation in times of need. I have included an abbreviated version of our annual report with this letter, where you can find more details on what we achieved with the donations last year.
If you’d like to make either a single donation by buying a Christmas Box for someone like Kirsty, or if you’d like to make a regular monthly contribution of any amount, please send back the enclosed form to the following address:
Yours Sincerely,