A handful of charities are teaming up to raise awareness of how they endeavour to support their communities.

On Saturday, October 8, World Homelessness Day, Uncomfortable Oxford, a social enterprise that aims to highlight historical inequalities in Oxford, is partnering with several charities to host an awareness-raising event.

In a context of rising prices and cost-of-living, the event is both a call to action as well as an opportunity to learn more about the diverse ways that Oxford organisations work to support their communities.

Read more: Pictures: Burst water main causing major delays

The event will run all afternoon in central Oxford and will provide several ways to engage with the urgent work done by the charities.

From 2pm to 5pm there will be a charities fair held at the New Road Baptist Church in Bonn Square, with representatives from 11 charities hosting stalls to provide further information about their work.

At 2.30pm, guests can join a free one-hour long awareness raising walking tour about the history of social and economic inequalities in the city, highlighting examples from the past and the work of an Oxford charity in the present.

The tour has been designed in collaboration with Uncomfortable Oxford, which uses ‘discomfort’ to foster productive discussions on contested histories.

The tour will cover the housing crisis, food poverty, stories of addition, gentrification and the criminalisation of poverty, mental health and more.

Participating charities include Edge Housing and Matilda House, they provide accommodation to Oxford’s homeless population.

Other featured charities include Crisis, Oxford Winter Night Shelter, The Gatehouse and Connection Support which provide support to the homeless community in Oxford.

In addition to the community organisations, the student societies Just Love and Turl Street Homeless Action, who organise the distribution of food and drinks to the homeless while building relationships, will be represented.

Resources from other charities – including Oxfordshire Homeless Movement and St Mungo’s – will also be available on the day.

The aim of the event is to bring a more nuanced understanding about homelessness, highlight the work of the charities within Oxford, and encourage the Oxford community to further support these charities.

The event is open to the public. To find out more, please visit https://www.uncomfortableoxford.co.uk/homelessnessday

Uncomfortable Oxford is an academic-led organisation dedicated to raising awareness about the ‘uncomfortable’ aspects of history.

Through unique walking tours, the organisation hopes to generate discussions about racial inequality, gender and class discrimination, and legacies of empire.

The tours are written and researched by academic experts.

They ask questions that provoke new ways of seeing the city landscape and its history.

 

Read more from this author

This story was written by Matthew Norman, he joined the team in 2022 as a Facebook community reporter.

Matthew covers Bicester and focuses on finding stories from diverse communities.

Get in touch with him by emailing: Matthew.norman@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @OxMailMattN1

A message from our Editor

Thank you for reading this story and supporting the Oxford Mail.

If you like what we do please consider getting a subscription for the Oxford Mail and in return we’ll give you unrestricted access with less adverts across our website from the latest news, investigations, features, and sport.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok for more. 

You can also join the conversation in our Facebook groups: stay ahead of traffic alerts here, keep up to date with the latest from court here, share your favourite memories of Oxford here, get your daily dose of celebrity news here and take some time out with news that will make you smile. 

If you’ve got a story for our reporters, send us your news here. You can also list an event for free here.