A charity race day at Chepstow last month raised £7000 for the Cardiff based homeless charity Llamau. The Cardiff based organisation is 30 years old and aims to irradicate homelessness for young people and women in Wales.
The charity is known for supporting those who are most at risk including care leavers, those who have been involved with the criminal justice system and those who have experienced domestic abuse. To tackle issues that require high levels of individual support, the charity provides numerous measures. Accommodation, outreach services, education and training are all provided.
The fundraising event was held on Tuesday 28th June with the money raised going towards local communities in Wales to help those most in need.
Lucy Walker, Corporate Fundraiser at Llamau, said: “What we do is so vast, it’s hard to put it down to one thing. As well as offering safe accommodation we also offer several outreach services.
"We work in local communities, trying to keep young people in their homes. We have a huge team who focus on education.
“So, for youngsters who, for no fault of their own, have dropped out of education, we offer our own education services to help them get reengaged. We also offer them training and support to help them get into work.
“In addition, we offer domestic abuse services, we work with the NHS, we work in schools. So that money raised will go towards several of these projects.”
Homelessness and domestic abuse requires complex and individual support. Llamau provides a wide-ranging holistic package to support these diverse requirements in the hope of making a difference.
Lucy added: “In the last 30 years in Wales alone we have supported nearly 100,000 people and, whilst we do get funding from local government, to keep providing these services we need to keep funding.
“Because of the additional services we supply as a charity, we helped at least 83% of the children and young people to improve their mental and emotional health.”
Llamau has helped 7,697 children with housing related support just in 2021 alone.
While the event at Chepstow helped the charity raise much-needed funds, it was also crucial in getting their message across to the public.
Lucy said: “It is really important to be seen and have people understand what we do in the communities they live in. If you think it costs £91 to offer one-nights safe accommodation to a young person, that seven thousand pounds raised here goes a long way.”
“Because we are a Welsh based charity, there was so much interest, we managed to sell sponsorship of all seven races on the day. It was a great atmosphere because all the sponsors for the day were all in one room, all supporting a great cause”.
“We had our branding everywhere, the bucket collectors wore branded Llamau t-shirts, which was good to have out there as a visual for people. It was a great way for the charity to get some public awareness.”
The event sponsors were Thomas Carroll, Office Visions, Blake Morgan, Hodge Bank, NJP Consulting, W2 Construction and Avison Young.
