Myself and five other members of the LGBTQ Association took part in the St. Basils "Big SleepOut" on Friday 4th december (I briefly blogged about it just before leaving).

The SleepOut was intended to raise awareness of homeless and raise funds for St. Basil's by sponsorship. Of particular interest to us is the concern of LGBT* homelessness. According to one source, 26% of gay teens who come out are made homeless. Out of the 1.6 million homeless American youth, an estimated 42% self-define as gay/lesbian/bisexual.

The event was held in the car park of St. Basil's in Digbeth. The 250 participants were provided with cardboard boxes and sheets of plastics with which to construct a shelter for the evening. For some reason we as a group felt that constructing a pentagon-shaped fortress was a smart move. After later augmenting the structure with a series of pillars, before learning that the real issue with rain is the puddles that tend to form underneath. Although our creation endured a night of rain quite well under the circumstances, we spent the last two hours by the fire-bin.

In spite of all that, it's glaringly obvious that we were quite well provisioned for during, so it was hard to gain a full appreciation of the challenges faced by our LGBTQ brothers and sisters who are made homeless; but at the very least it was a taster. As a group we raised roughly £100 through sponsorship donations which will goto this worthwhile charity. I'd like to thank everyone that gave up their Friday evening to take part in this event.

The full photo album is here on Facebook; tags and all.