Charity launches cashless app to gift homeless persons much needed resources

Local Charity, Pocket Angel, invite businesses to a soft launch event on Tuesday 21st May, at the Brighton Hilton Metropole.

Businesses in Brighton who are interested in offering any of the following products: food, beverages, vet care or hygiene kits are all encouraged to come and hear about this much needed cashless app incentive to find out how they can be involved in this city-wide initiative.

There will be a VR experience, demo of the app and the whole team on hand to answer their questions and concerns. The partner sign up is focused at getting people interested and on board to develop a community of support. There is no cost to the partners as users of the app will gift the supplies.

Event details and FREE ticket link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pocket-angel-app-launch-event-at-the-hilton-brighton-metropole-tickets-59431368824?fbclid=IwAR3om_NRSLK2RCfBbrFMYa9teZ4ZXW9VDz9hK7Xknwo9z8Vlj4x58bj3uP8

Getting A Kick Out Of Helping Brighton & Hove’s Young Homeless

Getting A Kick Out Of Helping Brighton & Hove’s Young Homeless

Brighton based Digital Marketing agency ThoughtShift is hosting a 5-a-side football tournament to raise funds for local homelessness charity, The Clock Tower Sanctuary, on Thursday 18th April.

Brighton has the second highest homeless population in England, and the number continues to rise each year. A large number of homeless are young people under 25 who have fallen into this situation through no fault of their own; typically they come from broken or dysfunctional homes, have experienced neglect or abuse, or are suffering with behavioural or mental problems that have made family life unmanageable. Last year over 1000 young people sought help from Brighton & Hove Council for homelessness, a worrying 40% increase in the last 2 years.

The ThoughtShift Charity Shield is in its second year and is the brain child of the company’s Talent & Culture Director, Heather Mbarek and Managing Director AJ Coutts, as part of its wellbeing programme.

Speaking about the forthcoming event in April, Heather commented “ThoughtShift is a forward-thinking digital marketing agency in which the happiness of our clients and team is a guiding principle. We feel that as a local business we have a responsibility to extend this ethos to our great city by giving something back. What better way to do this than support the area’s young and vulnerable by getting the local business community together for a charity football tournament, raise some money for an incredible local charity and have some fun at the same time.”

Speaking on behalf of The Clocktower Sanctuary, Development Manager Katya Borowski said “We are thrilled to once again have the support of ThoughShift. Worryingly, the age of our clients is getting younger – last year 21% of our new clients were 17-and 18-year olds, that’s an 11% increase on the year before. Our help, and your support is needed now more than ever. Events like this are a great way of getting likeminded businesses together to raise awareness and support for such an important cause.”

The event is being held at Dorothy Stringer School on the afternoon of Thursday 18th April from 1.30pm and will be umpired by FA official referees. Local businesses are invited to get involved and put forward a team towards what should be a memorable event for this amazing cause. There will be trophies for the winning team, the runner up and Man/ Woman of the Match.

Last years winners, Plus Accounting will be defending their title against both previous participants and teams new to the tournament this year including RocketMill, Trusted Housesitters, NatWest Accelerator, Futrli, Seed Publicity, ABN AMRO, Inshur and iCrossing. Vicky King of Plus Accounting commented “As the inaugural winner of the ThoughtShift Charity Shield, the team are eagerly awaiting their chance to retain the title! It was a great event last year and the impact it had on the office atmosphere was amazing, with the added bonus of supporting a brilliant local charity. We are ready to go again and face the other teams in the competition - we have even splashed out some new kits!”

Rowena Heal of RocketMill said “RocketMill participated in this event in 2018 and the team loved it. Those who took part really enjoyed the afternoon and everyone in the office was glued to Twitter, keeping an eye on the score and cheering/booing in the right places! We think it’s great that ThoughtShift has facilitated an event that brings businesses together and raises money for a great cause. We’re excited to be a part of it again in 2019!”

For more details or to or sponsor the ThoughtShift Charity Football Tournament, contact Heather Mbarek on 01273 006 099 or e-mail heather@thoughtshift.co.uk

‘SLEEP SAFE’ CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE AT RISK OF HOMELESSNESS

‘SLEEP SAFE’ CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED TO HELP YOUNG PEOPLE AT RISK OF HOMELESSNESS

Local homeless charity Sussex Nightstop are marking their 10-year anniversary by launching their ‘Sleep Safe’ campaign. The campaign will raise awareness of the many young people in Sussex at risk of homelessness, often as young as 16 years old.

With rates of homelessness on the increase, young people are particularly vulnerable to becoming homeless, especially when family breakdown is involved.

Research points to as many as one in five young people finding themselves in the unpredictable and risky situation of sofa-surfing and of these, roughly half will have sofa-surfed for more than a month.

Government data for 2017 illustrates Brighton had the second highest level of recorded rough sleepers in the country after Westminster. At 178 individuals, this represents a 24% increase on the previous year. Six percent of these people were under 26 years old.

Sleeping rough and other temporary living arrangements have a considerable and chronic negative effect. More than half of young people involved in 2017 research by homelessness charity De Paul UK said that not having a stable place to live had damaged their mental or emotional health, and the majority said that their physical wellbeing had suffered. Nearly half said that temporary living had had a negative impact on their relationships and more than four in 10 said it had damaged their education or their ability to find or keep work.

However, Sussex Nightstop provides a safety net for these young people, preventing them from becoming homeless. The charity matches vulnerable young people (aged 16-25) with volunteer hosts who put them up in their spare room, on a night-by-night basis. This gives the young person a safe space to resolve their housing problems, so they don’t risk spiralling into long-term homelessness or the dangers of rough sleeping.

The ‘Sleep Safe’ campaign is urging people to help alleviate this often-hidden problem of youth homelessness by supporting Sussex Nightstop’s work. The ‘Sleep Safe’ campaign will also raise £10,000 towards developing and delivering our services to young people including the recruitment and training of more volunteer hosts.

Sussex Nightstop are calling on commercial organisations and the Sussex community to get behind their fundraising campaign and help them in their ambition to have a safe bed available on every night of the week.

The work Sussex Nightstop does with vulnerable young people has already had very tangible results during their 10 years of operation:

• Since the project began, they have received 750 referrals of young people and matched 3000 bed nights to 345 young people.

• 45% of young people accessing Nightstop are in work or learning.

• 90% of young people using the Sussex Nightstop service go on to secure safer, more suitable housing.

Sussex Nightstop Executive Director Alison Marino said: “I am delighted to be celebrating our 10 year anniversary. The achievements accomplished through the efforts of our local volunteers and the Sussex Nightstop team cannot be underestimated.

“However, there is more work for us to do. We see first-hand the increasing and deepening challenges that young people face with regard to securing a safe and stable place to live. We need to continue to be there for them. We have tasked ourselves in providing a service that supports a range of different needs and we want to develop our volunteer host pool, both in numbers and skills. All of this will enable us to reach more people and move towards our goal of offering a safe bed night every night.

“The Sleep Safe campaign– the messages it spreads and the funds it raises – will help us towards our goal. People have real concern for this issue and on behalf of Sussex Nightstop I offer encouragement and thanks for supporting our campaign.”

A young person who has used Sussex Nightstop’s service said: “Thanks to you guys I achieved the impossible, I’m now living in Central Brighton. You gave me the strength to fight. Thank you so much for giving me a unique look into your family and home.”

One of Sussex Nightstop’s volunteer hosts, Liz, said: “Most of us are concerned about the growing plight of young people who cannot rely on having somewhere to sleep every night. Being able to offer them a warm welcome, a hot meal, and a bed so that they feel safe is such a rewarding yet easy thing to do. As hosts we’ve seen ourselves the positive difference Sussex Nightstop makes to the young people who have stayed with us. We hope the Sleep Safe campaign will help Nightstop to continue to be there for young people when they need it most.”

People who want to support Sussex Nightstop’s work can do this by donating to the ‘Sleep Safe’ campaign, by becoming a volunteer host, fundraising for us or by simply spreading the word about youth homelessness.

If you think you can help Sussex Nightstop raise £10,000 in their tenth-year visit: www.sussexnightstop.org.uk