Tours with a difference: Empowering the homeless to become city tour guides

AFP English

Edinburgh, one the most visited cities in Europe, is offering tourists the chance to see it from a different angle -- through the eyes of tour guides who have experienced homelessness.

Transcript

00:00My name is Sonny, I'll be your tour guide today. Invisible Cities is a social enterprise

00:17which means a social business with a social conscience. The reason it's set up here in

00:22Edinburgh in 2016 is to help formerly homeless people like myself, to give people job opportunities

00:28and training opportunities, but also to connect locals and tourists where I say to Edinburgh

00:32that other tour guides won't show ease. You come out of your big white gates, you'll get

00:36sent to Glasgow or Edinburgh, whatever prison you go to, so behave yourselves, that's where

00:40you go. All our tours are unique, we all make up our own tours, which means it's all about

00:46crime and punishment, but I also like to show other wee social enterprises and wee charities

00:51and projects that help homeless people and vulnerable people. A lot of those charities

00:55helped me when I was homeless, so that's why I like to show them and talk about them

00:58on the tour. I used to come here all the time, literally the only place in Edinburgh where

01:04homeless people could come and have a shower, wash their clothes and stuff, and it's a horrible

01:08feeling about not being able to have a shower, wash your clothes after a couple of days.

01:19When you're homeless, people don't look at you, they look through you and you are invisible,

01:23so all of a sudden to empower people to be visible and the centre of attention and lead

01:29a tour, I think that's really, really important. We currently have 18 guides, but have trained

01:36over 130 people now, and I always say it's not about having more guides, it's about training

01:41more people and having the current guides move on so we can create more opportunities

01:46for others to become guides.

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