A group of filmmakers wanted to see what would happen when people saw a young boy, cold, on the street, and asking for help.
The Internet is no stranger to “social experiment” videos. The concept is to place someone in a situation to see how they will react. Sometimes these experiments are completely made up and sometimes they’re not. However, from time to time, one will pop up that’s worth talking about. This is one.
This boy represents the approximately 1.7 million kids who call the streets “home” every year in the U.S.
An estimated 13 kids die on the street every day. 46% of homeless youth left home because of abuse. Most of us are probably guilty of passing homeless youth and thinking “someone else will take care of this” or “I don’t have cash on me.”
But this time, a man stopped to help.
The man who stepped in to help is also homeless. Maybe he empathizes because he’s been living on the streets since he was a teen or knows other homeless teens like him — we don’t know. What we do know is that more than one-third of the homeless population in the U.S. are families with children. And some estimates that 42% of those kids are under 5.
Sometimes, cash is not the only thing they need. They need an adult they can trust to say: “Are you OK? What can I do to help you?” Just like the man in this video.
I’m not a huge fan of these sorts of videos, but this one seems more symbolic and has a lesson we can all learn from.
