A heart-wrenching picture that shows a little boy eating his dinner off a piece of cardboard went viral.
The photo was shared by a café that helps homeless people in Dublin. It shows the child named Sam kneeling on the ground while eating the food by the Homeless Street Café.
The café shared the picture on Facebook to help raise awareness of the dilemma of people forced to eat, live and sleep on the streets.
“We are home after another incredibly busy night. I’m exhausted, weary and emotional and should (guiltily) go to bed BUT there is an image burnt in all the team’s minds tonight,” one of the volunteers wrote.
“It’s wrong and it’s distressing but this IS happening and it’s only getting worse each week.”
The post added: “’Sam’ is 5 and this was him eating a dinner of carbonara tonight on a sheet of cardboard. Can we really accept this.”
One person commented: “I never imagined seeing an image such as this in Dublin. I won’t forget it. Thank you for caring AND most importantly your actions.”
Another wrote: “So hard to see as a mother of 2 little boys, my heart is broke looking at this picture.”
The Homeless Street Café has responded and said they have been ‘overwhelmed’ by the replies their post has received.
“This post has reached over a quarter of a million people which is amazing and we have over a thousand comments and messages to go through,” their post said.
“We are small volunteer group and all our team are back in their day jobs today so please bear with us as we navigate through our next steps.”
They also confirmed that Sam is currently staying in emergency accommodation and goes to school.
“His mother is simply trying to access nutritious home cooked meals for him. Most emergency accommodations strictly forbid cooking or food preparation,” the café added.
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Replaced!