Every year I try and do something for charity whether it’s a gentle 5k jog or a 2 and ½ mile jump out of a plane. I was pondering what this year’s adventure might be. Should I climb a mountain? Walk through the rain forest only using my knees or maybe a balloon flight across the North Pole. And then I saw it and I knew it would be perfect for a multitude of reasons.
In doing this, I will face an emotional challenge that will have me writing for months! This, coupled with raising awareness of something I feel so passionately about, and the boxes are well and truly ticked.
Some of you know my story, some know bits of my story and some of you probably think my story is very very different to what it actually is because the reality would never have occurred to you. I have only been really open about these experiences for the last couple of years when I realised that it challenged stigmas and helped break down the walls of silence that people carry through feeling shame. Stigmas rage in our society about alcoholism, child abuse, homelessness, depression and there really is no need for people to carry this alone.
So here is a little timeline of a decade from a time in my life that has shaped me in far more ways than are for exploration in this blog post. When I was 13 I went into the care of the local authority for 3 years. I lived in foster homes and children’s homes, an experience which impacted upon me on every level. The very core of my being was affected emotionally, spiritually, financially, mentally, socially and educationally. In every possible way.
As it was the 1980’s and the Children Act 1989, created to protect Looked After Children, had not yet come into play, I then endured two years of homelessness. During this period, I lived in night shelters, the streets, trains, hostels and squats until finally housed in 1988 in London thanks to services available to children and young people who find themselves in this vulnerable abandoned situation. I slowly built my life by crawling into an AA meeting at the age of 20, getting clean and sober and then receiving funding from an amazing charity that enabled me to take A levels and then go on to do a Degree, recovering an education I had lost years before to survival!
The multitude of charities out there that saved my life are saving lives every day, quietly and continuously, while I sip my cappuccino and gaze out of my window with food in my cupboards and the heating on.
The purpose to telling you this is that out of all the things I have lived through, homelessness was the most disturbing of the lot. To be homeless is to be cold, hungry, invisible, ignored, segregated, abandoned, a nothing. To survive that, teaches you about yourself and about society at a depth that is unexplainable to those who have not been through it.
My chosen charity event for 2012 is going to be far harder than jumping out of a plane. I want to do the Sleep Out for The Big Issue. This is a demon that I feel ready to confront….
Will you do it with me? Groups of four can apply for only £100 with each group needing to raise a minimum of £1500. We could have a 40 of us….ten groups of four!
The Big Issue is amazing as it provides a truly entrepreneurial response to one of society’s hidden truths.
Please write to me at lisa.cherry@hotmail.co.uk if you would like to join me on 18th May in London and if it’s not for you, or you just like clicking buttons, then please press the ‘like’ button on this page and make a difference through raising awareness.
Much love to you all x
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