A South African Youtuber took to the streets of Cape Town to talk to people living on the streets… what he found has taught us all something.
Film maker and Youtuber Howard James Fyvie hails from Cape Town, South Africa. He works as a writer, director and actor and creates content that challenges conventional norms.
His latest project has made him see a different side of homeless people and in the process changed our perspective too.
With his camera in hand, Fyvie took to the streets to have conversations with people that he wouldn’t normally interact with… what he found out is that those are the people that desperately need interaction!
In one tearful conversation with a man named Lucian, Fyvie asks him how often he gets to talk to people. His answer was that he only interacts with others once in a while, sometimes only once a week when a stranger stops to talk to him for a bit.
“Imagine only having a conversation with another human being once a week, when you’re carrying such hectic stuff.”
Crisis research has found that, for many homeless people, social isolation preceded homelessness and the experience of homelessness then exacerbates that isolation.
Relationship breakdown is a major cause of homelessness, such as disputes with parents, domestic abuse, marital breakdown or bereavement, and many homeless people do not have any contact with their families.
Alongside the lack of informal support networks, isolation and loneliness are common among people who are homeless. Less than a third of homeless people spend time with non-homeless people, and almost 38 per cent of homeless people said they spent their entire day alone.
A third of homeless men reported that their only daily contact was with service providers, and more than half of homeless people said they had no ‘family ties’.
Isolation of this kind erodes people’s capability (e.g. employability, skills, knowledge, etc) as well as their resilience or ability to cope with life’s adverse events, including having the ability to overcome life’s difficulties.
Watch the emotional video below:
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