Focus Ireland's newest video to highlight homeless crisis is extremely powerful
If anything's worth a watch today, it's this
Here's a short film released by Focus Ireland today as part of their campaign to highlight the ongoing homelessness crisis, with an emphasis on young people.
The charity today launched a hard-hitting short film to highlight the plight of young people becoming homeless when leaving State Care at 18.
The piece is called “I can’t Sleep” and features actress Grainne Goode playing the part a young person leaving care.
The emotive twist in the piece is that it shows two versions of how her character Lucy’s life pans out – One where she is safe as she has getting aftercare support and housing from Focus Ireland and the other version of her life where is homeless and in danger on the streets as she has no support.
Focus Ireland said the film serves to highlight the reality that young people can be protected when aftercare support and housing is in place. However, if there is no aftercare support young people often become homeless and their lives can spin out of control – sadly sometimes ending in tragedy.
The piece features the U2 song “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own” and the band kindly gave permission for Focus Ireland to use the song. The short film is being rolled out across TV and social media from in a campaign made possible by support from Bord Gáis Energy (BGE) as part of its partnership with Focus Ireland.
Bord Gáis Energy has generously supported the media behind this video as they share the belief that youth homelessness can be prevented.
The video ends with an appeal for people to text HOME to 50300 to donate €4. For every €1 raised Bord Gais Energy will kindly match it, to a max of €60,000.