Beaulieu College held their inaugural School SleepOut this year when 80 pupils, teachers and parents spent the evening of 28 July sleeping outside on the campus grounds in order to get a better understanding of how the homeless live.
The school participated in this worthy cause thanks to the efforts of Mark Naidoo, the deputy head of academics at the college, who wanted the pupils to learn how to be empathetic. “I read an article recently that explained that after someone has found success, they need to move towards significance,” Naidoo explained to Fourways Review.
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“I want our children to learn how to be empathetic to the homeless. When talking about homelessness, the problem is not a lack of support for them, but rather that people just look past them.
“We are raising some money to support one of our neighbouring schools, the Sefikeng Primary School, which is [situated] on the grounds of… [Leeuwkop Correctional Centre], but the thing is, that if we were just trying to give them resources, a few of our children would bring stationery, but then what would the rest do?
For me, I’m more interested in the children learning how to identify with the homeless, to understand what they go through.”
Out of the 400 pupils registered at the college, about 20 percent of them attended the School SleepOut, even though many pupils are actually still in their mid-year exam period.
Jorge Ruiz-Mesa, the school’s maths teacher and father to one of the college’s Grade 11 pupils, said that although the timing of the School SleepOut was tricky, it was worth the difficulty because it’s good to raise money and awareness of such a big problem. “I know that the children are excited to do this,” he explained.
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“For the younger ones, it’s an adventure sleeping at the school. But for the older grades, who are interested in community service generally, it’s about having concern [for other people].”
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