Journalist and ‘extreme sleeper’ Phoebe Smith has just celebrated Christmas with a wild camping version of the three peaks challenge to raise money for Centrepoint.
Phoebe has spent the festive period overnighting on the summits of the highest mountains in Wales, England and Scotland. Phoebe said: “I wanted to highlight how I get to wild camp for fun, whereas others don’t get a choice. I love the exhilaration of spending a wild night out under the stars. But every year around 150,000 young people experience a problem that results in homelessness, meaning they’ve no choice but to sleep rough”.
Homelessness is a huge problem in the UK with an estimated 150,000 young people living on the streets. The average age that a homeless person dies is 47 and tragically they are nine times more likely to kill themselves.
Phoebe wanted to highlight the problems that result in homelessness and why people end up with no choice other than to sleep rough. She says; “For them it is not fun, it is not exciting and at the end they don’t get to go back to a warm home to share their stories. It’s easy to forget that – especially at Christmas”.
For this reason Phoebe decided not to spend the run up to the big day in the shops or out indulging in the excesses of the season. She took the issue of homelessness to new heights while raising awareness and money for Centrepoint.
Centrepoint helps over 9,000 homeless 16-25 year olds into a home and a job every single year. But with more funding they could do so much more. If you’d like to donate here is a link to Phoebe’s Just Giving Page:
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/extremesleeps