Calton Hill became Edinburgh’s first ‘pyjamming’ site when business leaders from the city took on the challenge of snapping themselves at the popular landmark wearing just their jammies.
Action for Children Scotland is calling on Edinburgh residents to join the fight against youth homelessness by ‘pyjamming’ too – posing in their pyjamas and sharing photos online. The campaign coincides with Byte Night Scotland, an annual fundraiser which sees members of the business and technology communities sleep rough to raise vital funds in aid of the charity’s youth homelessness services.
Rhona Hutchon, director at Harvey Nash, Dave Kelly, director at 2i Testing, Sinead Watt, tactical resource management technician at Openreach, and Matt Little, chief technology officer at Zone Fox got pyjamming off to a sleepy start at Edinburgh’s Disgrace. They are all taking part in Byte Night Edinburgh.
Sir Tony Hawkhead, chief executive of Action for Children, who will be sleeping out in October, said: “We are setting Scotland a pyjamming challenge. It is very silly, and our pyjammers may even find it a bit embarrassing, but it has a serious purpose.
“We want to make people aware that youth homelessness is a real issue; there are teenagers in this country who don’t have a safe place to call home. And more than that, we want to do something about it. That’s why we’re pyjamming and that’s why we’ll be sleeping rough on Byte Night. We need people to join the fight against youth homelessness.”
The most recent figures for Scotland show 12,000 young people registered homeless or potentially homeless in 2011/12. Only a fraction of the true number of homeless young people are captured by this statistic, as many are not officially recognised by local authorities.
Charlie Halliday (17) stays at homeless accommodation provided by Action for Children Scotland. He said: “My mum had some personal problems which made it impossible for me to stay at home. I was in a very vulnerable position and I had nowhere to go, I was lucky that a room came up with Action for Children Scotland. I never had to sleep rough, but that’s only thanks to the charity.”
Byte Night takes place on Friday, October 3 across the UK. To see who is already signed up and register, please visit bytenight.org.uk. Action for Children Scotland wants Edinburgh residents to take part in its pyjamming challenge. Share your photo using the hashtag #pyjamming.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
