When the roof leaks or the rent falls through, school comes second. Our shelter support keeps families housed — and children learning.
Last winter, one of our partner schools flagged twelve pupils arriving tired, hungry, and distracted. Home visits told the same story each time: overcrowded rooms, arrears, and the constant threat of eviction. So we built a small shelter fund with one rule — keep the family together, under a safe roof, as fast as possible.
“They didn’t just pay the rent. They gave us room to breathe — and my son his grades back.”
Six months on, eleven of those twelve pupils are still in school and attending regularly. We paid arrears, repaired two homes, and moved one family into a safer flat near the school gates. Shelter work is quiet and unglamorous, but teachers tell us it is the single fastest way to change a child’s trajectory.