Excalibur Communications and Techs4Education colleagues faced the winter night elements for a charity sleep out on Friday, January 18th, in support of the new Haven Centre being set up by Swindon Night Shelter. In its fifth year of supporting Swindon’s homeless, staff slept on cardboard, in sleeping bags in the company car park. 17 colleagues took take part in the charity initiative and raised £2,000 for the Swindon Night Shelter. This sum has been match funded by James Phipps, Excalibur Executive Chairman, via his Younite charity foundation, to make a total of £4,000.
The new Haven Centre opened its doors to homeless clients when it launched officially on January 2nd this year. The Centre building has been leased to the Swindon Night Shelter and is designed to bring together various providers under one roof. It will teach cooking and household management skills, provide basic IT training and show clients how to write CVs, apply for jobs and access the benefits system. Swindon Night Shelter hopes homeless clients will gain the skills and knowledge they need to navigate finding permanent accommodation and a job. The Haven Centre will work with Swindon Borough Council to find housing solutions for clients.
Excalibur CEO, Peter Boucher, speaking about the Sleep Out said; “ We wanted our night of discomfort to raise awareness of homelessness in Swindon as well as raise money for the Night Shelter, which does such fantastic work to support local homeless people. Homelessness is sadly rife across the UK and we, at Excalibur, wanted to do something to help those individuals who have ended up having to sleeping rough.”
Becky Davison from the Swindon Night Shelter, said; “We are very grateful for the money raised by the Excalibur Sleep Out for the new Haven Centre. As well as providing temporary shelter to homeless people, we aim to up-skill them and assist them back into the permanent accommodation and the workplace. This money will support many people to use the Haven. We have no regular funding and rely entirely on the generosity of donors and businesses like Excalibur, thank you.”