World Homeless Day is on 10th October and Catching Lives will be looking to work alongside members of our community, including churches and schools, to spread the word about rough sleeping and homelessness in the local area.
If you would like to work with us to hold an event to support homeless people the area please get in contact. Please see below for the work that our community undertook last year. We hope that this coming World Homeless Day will be even more successful but we cannot do it without your support.
Previous events
Schools art competition
In summer 2020 we ran an arts competition to celebrate both 10 years of Catching Lives working with the homeless in Canterbury and East Kent, and also World Homeless Day.
The competition was for children of primary school age and involved creating a poster using our logo. The winning entries featured on the front of a Catchinglives calendar and received a £100 Amazon voucher. Two runners-up prizes of £50 and £25 Amazon vouchers were also awarded. Here are the winning entries:
Tents on the Rheims Way
On World Homeless Day itself, we got permissions to put Catching Live’s tents up. These tents were wonderfully decorated by local artist Zo Defferary, with statistics and messages about Catching Lives designed to have a big impact on those who saw them and help raise awareness of homelessness and the work we do.
Video appeal
Please see the below video outlining the nature of rough sleeping in Canterbury and how you can make a positive impact on your local community.
Harbledown Hope
Our book, created by our clients and volunteers can now be purchased on Amazon by clicking here
There is also a limited stock available at our daycentre (Station Road East) and Bookshop (Palace Street)
The Homeless Experiences that Inspired Our Harbledown Story : At Catching Lives we have written a story for children based on the experiences of the homeless through the eyes of animals. The choice of the urban fox called Harbledown for the main character, has been central to this. Right from the beginning this was a character that many can relate to and enables them to bring in their own experiences, the ups and downs of homeless life and the emotions and trauma endured by our community.
All of the settings chosen for our story, can relate to and are featured within “A Walk in Our Shoes “ monograph. Urban foxes often wander their own lonely road being maligned and misunderstood.
Harbledown is one of us. “Harbledown Hope” has inspired our community to write and illustrate their first book to be published and will be launched on World Homeless Day at the Open Centre on:
Tuesday 10th October 2017. 2pm – 4pm and 6.30pm – 8.30pm.
Refreshments (drinks, sandwiches and cakes will be available)
Please RSVP if you would like to attend by emailing: glennis@catchinglives.org
The book launch, held on 10th October 2017, was a huge success- Thank you to all who came along.
Canterbury Lord Mayor Rosemary Doyle and Catching Lives chair of trustees Mark Cowland
Sheriff of Canterbury Colin Spooner and clients of Catching Lives
Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield
Sleepouts and non-uniform days
In 2017 various groups, including schools undertook events for us throughout October, including:
Canterbury College Sleepout- (students sleeping on college campus)-
A huge well done and thank you to students and staff for taking action and sleeping out on World Homeless Day in order to raise awareness of homelessness in the local area.
They raised an incredible £600.
St Peter’s Methodist Primary School Non-Uniform Day- Friday 13th October
Stelling Minnis Primary School Non-Uniform’ day Friday 13th October
St Mary’s Stelling Church Sleepout- 20th October, 6:30pm till morning
Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle- 4th October (82 mins running time)
Playing at The Gulbenkian Cinema at University of Kent, Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle explored the agenda behind the neglect, demolition and regeneration of council estates in the U.K. over the past thirty years. The film reveals how individuals and communities are fighting against the state and private developers, as they try to save their homes from demolition, while investigating the decisions that turned a crisis into a tragedy.
There was also an information video detailing the work undertaken by Catching Lives shown before the film and a Q&A panel afterwards, with our General Manager Terry Gore included.
More information/ get involved
If you would like more information, for example if the above has inspired you to get involved with something yourself, please email graeme@catchinglives.org
