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Lemn Sissay: The Christmas Dinner
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Created by the poet Lemn Sissay "The Christmas Dinner" is organized by a set of artists, adult care leavers and social care professionals from each city where the Dinner takes place. They work together from October to December to provide a Christmas Day dinner to remember for care leavers between 16 and 30. Many young people leaving care are sat in flats, B&B’s, hostels, sofa surfing and indeed living on the streets on their own at Christmas. It can be a day to dread and then forget.
This year Christmas Dinners are takig place in Hackney, Manchester and here in Leeds too. They’ve raised £38,000 this year in 49 days via crowdfunder. It’ll help fund three Christmas Dinners this year and four next year. The average budget for Christmas dinner is £5,000. The community provides venues, gifts, decorations and the invaluable contribution of volunteer time. This is how a city shines. The Christmas Dinner will become a reality.
In his conference speech this year Prime Minister David Cameron spoke of the care system. “Children in care are today almost guaranteed to live in poverty. 84 per cent leave school without five good GCSEs. 70 per cent of prostitutes were once in care. And tragically, care leavers are four times more likely to commit suicide than anyone else.
It's a real achievement that this project has inspired so many people and organisations to contribute in many different ways. Though Lemn maintains that this is an arts led project there are over 100 years experience of working with care leavers on each steering group. The primary aim of The Christmas Dinner is to allow communities to take care of the ones who leave care at their most vulnerable time.
INVISIBLE KISSES
written by Lemn Sissay
If there was ever one
Whom when you were sleeping
Would wipe your tears
When in dreams you were weeping;
Who would offer you time
When others demand;
Whose love lay more infinite
Than grains of sand.
If there was ever one
To whom you could cry;
Who would gather each tear
And blow it dry;
Who would offer help
On the mountains of time;
Who would stop to let each sunset
Soothe the jaded mind.
If there was ever one
To whom when you run
Will push back the clouds
So you are bathed in sun;
Who would open arms
If you would fall;
Who would show you everything
If you lost it all.
If there was ever one
Who when you achieve
Was there before the dream
And even then believed;
Who would clear the air
When it’s full of loss;
Who would count love
Before the cost.
If there was ever one
Who when you are cold
Will summon warm air
For your hands to hold;
Who would make peace
In pouring pain,
Make laughter fall
In falling rain.
If there was ever one
Who can offer you this and more;
Who in keyless rooms
Can open doors;
Who in open doors
Can see open fields
And in open fields
See harvests yield.
Then see only my face
In the reflection of these tides
Trough the clear water
Beyond the river side.
All I can send is love
In all that this is
A poem and a necklace
Of invisible kisses.