Students swap iPods for night without a home (From The Northern Echo)

Students swap iPods for night without a home

3:02am Monday 17th March 2008

• Print
• Email
• Share

A SLUM appeared in one of the North-East's most picturesque city's at the weekend in an attempt to raise awareness of homelessness.

As part of Slum Survivor, 26 teenagers spent 39 hours without Playstations, iPods or a solid roof over their heads in Durham City, to experience homelessness faced by one sixth of the world's population.

"It was tricky," said Ben Bartlett, a sixth form student at Durham Johnston School. "It was cold out there."

"I got used to being cold," said Katie Turnbull. "But I missed my bacon sandwich."

After dark on Friday, the walls of St John's Church, in Neville's Cross, were used by the students to attach tarpaulin, cardboard boxes and whatever materials were to hand, to construct makeshift accommodation.

Organiser Kate Robinson, from Durham Youth for Christ, said: "The slums were pretty good. We tested them for wind and rain by shaking them and pouring water over the top, and they all passed."

But the teenagers did not just have to sleep outside - they also had to eat a very restricted diet, including lentils for breakfast.

"The toughest thing was the breakfast," said Chris Urwin, 16.

"You got used it to it, but your mouth was expecting cereal."

Small luxuries - such as fruit - were available, but they had to be won through a series of challenges.

At 8am yesterday, the 39 hours were up.

"It went better than expected," Mrs Robinson said. "I thought we might have had tears or people getting angry and frustrated. But they handled it incredibly well."

Slum Survivor aims to make young people aware of homelessness and raise money to support Christian social projects by Soul Action.

The Durham group hope to have raised £1,000 through sponsorship.

Eleanor Lancelot, 18, said: "I've been really challenged to think about whether I'm paying lip service to these issues - to look at God's heart for the broken and move away from Christians being inward looking."

For more information on Slum Survivor, go to soulaction. org/slumsurvivor

• Print
• Email
• Share