BT Cymru Wales staff sleep rough to help homeless young people
BT Cymru Wales employees will be sleeping rough on the streets of Cardiff on Friday, 07 October to help raise money for vulnerable young people.
Twelve members of staff, including members of the BT Cymru Wales board, will join a total of 100 people from Welsh businesses and organisations who will spend a night outside Cardiff’s Principality Stadium.
It’s one of the annual Byte Night fundraising events taking place across ten UK cities on Friday 7 October, with a total of 1,500 people from the business community sleeping out under the stars. This year is the first time that a Byte Night event has been held in Cardiff.
The money raised will go to Action for Children to support local programmes in each sleep-out location.
Co-ordinating the efforts of BT Cymru Wales for Byte Night in Cardiff is BT general manager and local Langland resident, Jeremy Smitham. He said: “I was personally motivated to get involved with Byte Night as I have kids myself and think the work that Action for Children does to support and help less privileged kids is fantastic.”
“It’s about raising funds for homeless children who, through no fault of their own, are forced to sleep out. This can occur for various reasons but often it’s due to family breakdown, mental health issues or abuse in the home.”
“As sleepers we experience a cold hard floor and no home comforts for one night but afterwards go home for breakfast and a warm shower. For some homeless children in the UK it’s a recurring nightmare.”
Deprivation, child neglect and youth homelessness remains a massive problem around the UK. More than 80,000 young people are impacted by homelessness and the efforts for Byte Night will drive awareness of their plight. Money raised as part of Byte Night will help these young people build better lives by providing them with essential support, accommodation, education and training.
Action for Children hope that Byte Night will help raise more than £1.4m towards supporting its work to assist vulnerable children, young people and families.
