A friend of mine is in great need.

Since the death of his great grandmother, five years ago, the relationship with his parents deteriorated significantly as his gran, who he was very close to, was essentially keeping his parents and him together as a family unit. Tensions escalated and in August 2016 and after hiding his sexuality for several years his parents finally discovered his secret and kicked him out of the family home. He was subsequently blamed for his mother’s ill-health (breast cancer) and his whole family turned against him in one foul swoop.

During the period between September and Christmas 2016, he moved in with his granddad and became estranged from his parents. During this time his granddad’s health began to deteriorate from firstly a car crash and secondly following a stroke he had suffered. It was then incumbent on my friend to take care of his granddad during this time and this, unfortunately, had an adverse effect on his attendance at university which lead to his withdrawal. His granddad unfortunately suffered a fatal heart attack several weeks later. This was a huge blow to my friend who found himself with nowhere to go and was faced with potential homelessness. As can be imagined, this was an incredibly stressful time for him as he had no job and therefore no means of income to support himself and with no contact with his parents or any family whilst caring for his granddad, this took its toll on him both mentally and physically.

My friend had hidden all of the above from me and eventually when things got too unbearable he opened up to my parents and I who agreed to take him in. We, as a family, endeavoured to help him get through such an ordeal, firstly by starting the process of appealing his university withdrawal. With the help of a compassionate senior lecturer he appealed against his withdrawal which took six months and a lot of stress and instability. Thankfully the appeal was successful and he will return to university, full time, in October.

Given the issues that have occurred, it has had an increasingly adverse effect on my friend’s health; his mental health. He has bouts of feeling incredibly down feeling as though he has nowhere to go and no one who could or would be able to help him – he has been abandoned by his family. He has been diagnosed with depression, he was not himself and his social life has suffered immensely as he was alienating himself from his friends.

This crowd-funding page was set up, with no knowledge of it by my friend, with the aim to raise enough money to help him buy the essentials he requires for university as well as his travel costs as he has since found a partner who lives thirty miles away and the daily commute is expensive and that is not a fair burden that he should carry after all of the tribulations.

Hopefully the money raised will help him get back onto his feet and demonstrate that there are people out there who care.

Thank you.