Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Friends’ tentless sleepout raises cash and awareness
A sleepout has raised more than £3,000 in aid of refugees in northern France.
Naomi Potter, 36, of Canterbury-based organisation Care4humanity, and a group of friends, slept in her garden with no tent on a night where temperatures reached minusone centigrade, in solidarity with refugees who will spend this winter sleeping rough in Calais and Dunkirk.
The mother-of-three organised the sleepout after visiting France in September and seeing how refugees were sleeping in the open following the demolition of the so-called Jungle camp last year.
Naomi, who lives in Whitstable and has regularly taken supplies to France over the last two and a half years, said: “It was tough. The night before, when it was sleeting, I was in a panic, because I was going to sleep outside with no tent.
“It was just really uncomfortable to sleep on the cold ground. There wasn’t a lot of sleeping. Everyone said it was really uncomfortable, even those who were wearing six layers, which is more than the people we were doing it for would have.
“It was partly about raising awareness of the conditions that they are sleeping in, it was partly experiencing what it was like, and asking people to donate to our cause.”
Seventeen people took part in the sleepout earlier this month, including friends in Ashford and Frankfurt, Germany.
The money raised has been used to buy 202 winter sleeping bags, which were delivered to France by Care4humanity and members of the Faversham and Villages Refugee Solidarity Group.