THOUSANDS of young people in Scotland gave up their beds for the night to raise money for the homeless.

Around 5000 youngsters across Scotland slept out this weekend in support of homeless charity Social Bite.

The Wee Sleep Out, a national awareness-raising fundraising campaign, has been backed by children aged eight to 16 who are passionate about ending homelessness in Scotland as part of the Year of Young People 2018.

Wee Sleep Outs took place over Friday 9 and Saturday 10 November, with schools, clubs, families at home and youth groups all backing the campaign.

Among those taking part were the “Burnbrae Boys”, a group of five school friends from Bonnyrigg. The P5 pupils Cosmo MacDougall, Cole Hood, Lachlan Johnson, Ollie Willis and Robert Hodge (all aged 9) spent the night together in Robert’s back garden, enduring a night in the cold to raise money for the charity.

Cosmo said: “We’re proud that we all managed to sleep outside for the whole night and raise money for Social Bite. It was really windy, noisy and wet but my Dad put tarpaulin up as a shelter so at least we didn’t get completely soaked. It wasn’t too cold with all of us huddled together but it was very uncomfortable. I can’t believe people have to live like this.”