Card board box city

​Cardboard box city
St. Basils sleepout
St. Basils is a charity helping the homeless, with the young on the streets being one of their priorities. This event took place in the churchyard of St. Martens cathedral in Birmingham, this is the same Church that I wrote about previously (the church is beautiful tonight) and have created a piece in response to the church at Christmas But this event was held at the church, but not by the church, the project involved groups or individuals collecting sponsorship to use cardboard boxes to create shelters, where they would then spend the night
The initial atmosphere was competitive, with the participants jostling for the best cardboard, secretly building extra features into their constructions and adding elements that they had previously made. This individualistic spirit lasted for a while, but it didn’t take long for the cold to have its effect, with fingers becoming too cold to build elaborate structures and insulation became more pressing. As the cold grew, so did the community spirit amongst the participants, hot food was given out by the local mosque, which greatly improved peoples spirits and as people ate, they also talked and shared their thoughts and ideas on the issues surrounding homelessness.
But did this strategy work
The event certainly raised money as the participants were sponsored and there were collecting tins used on the night.
What is less calculable is whether the awareness of the plight of the homeless youth was raised in people’s minds, the participants experienced at least some insight into the issue of sleeping rough, but their experience lasted for just one night. There was an effort to raise public awareness by people on the perimeter of the fence giving out information leaflets and talking to passers-by, but how many people put their eyes to the pavement and passed on by, in the same way that they would when passing the homeless on the streets.
Because the cardboard structures were tucked into the shelter of the church walls and far behind the barriers from the pavement onlookers could not get a clear view of the event and so it leaves me wondering if the impact was lost. It is difficult to balance the security of the participants with the need to be accessible to the viewer if the subject is to be engaged with more effectively
 I’m not sure that sleepout was the correct term, I think that most of the participants made it until morning, but there was much more talking and sharing of both stories and hot food and drinks, than sleeping, but this also raises the point of how important the sharing of food is, in bringing people together to keep up their spirits and in talking about ideas and issues.