A group of Girl Guides in Dunfermline have raised £500 for Aberlour’s ROC; Running Other Choices service, the only runaway refuge in Scotland.
The 9th Dunfermline Girl Guides were inspired to raise the money through the Girl Guiding UK campaign ‘Changing the World’, a campaign encouraging Girl Guides throughout the country to fundraise for projects which impact on social change. The Guides chose the Railway Children as their specific project and ROC is their partner in Scotland.
The generous donation was collected by ROC service Manager, Laura Irvine yesterday evening (Mon 8th June) at a Girl Guide meeting, where Laura also gave the group of girls and their parents a short presentation on ROC and how their money would be spent.
Aberlour, the largest solely children’s charity in Scotland, launched the ROC service in Glasgow in 2001. It provides a vital service to over 9,000 children and young people who run away from home each year and is Scotland’s only safe haven for young runaways.
The Girl Guides raised their generous amount through a pamper evening and a sponsored silence. Girl Guide leader Jean Wilson explained said:
“ROC is fantastic service that we’re delighted to be supporting. The girls were very enthusiastic in raising the money, so much so that they even held a sponsored silence for over an hour which is unheard of! We’ve had lots of fun raising money for such a worthwhile cause.”
The money raised will help ROC to continue supporting young runaways with clothing and toiletries.
Laura Irvine, Service Manager of ROC said:
“We are so grateful to the girls for their hard work and support for ROC. It was a joy to meet the girls and explain the type of things their money will be spent on. I’d like to say a big well done for all their effort.”
About ROC
Running: Other Choices (ROC) is a service dedicated to young people in Scotland, under the age of 16, who are thinking about or have run away. The ROC service provides both a refuge and outreach service to support some of Scotland’s most vulnerable children and young people. With over 9,000 children in Scotland running away each year and two thirds of these not being reported missing to the police, it was clear there was a need for this vital service.
The ROC service opened in 2004 and provides Scotland’s only refuge for young runaways who feel unable to return home. It is a safe haven away from the dangerous streets where 1 in 6 of the 9,000 runaways each year are physically or sexually assaulted.