h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

ENGLAND - POVERTY

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Hundreds of young homeless people are being given the chance to go to university thanks to a bursary scheme launched today by charity The Foyer Federation and the Department for Education and Skills.

Foyers were originally set up in France to provide accommodation, access to education, training and jobs and a way of gradually rejoining mainstream society for homeless people.

Up to 300 people who have lived in foyers around the UK will be given £3,150 over three years to attend English universities. The money should help them with living costs during vacations and will be paid through hardship funds operated by individual universities for students starting degrees in September 2002.

Foyer Federation chief executive Carolyn Hayman says it isthe first such scheme of its kind.

"There has been a view that homeless people aren't university material," she says. "The aim of the new programme is to help these people realise their educational potential and lift themselves out of the conditions which perpetuate their poverty and homelessness."

Since the first UK foyer was opened in 1992, their number has grown to 110.

I guess that there is no better place to start than in one's own backyard--here in the UK. This has got to be a good idea since it accords with the principle of tackling the causes rather than the effects-- "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish and you feed him for life."