A group of Edinburgh students is gathering donations for the homeless in Potterrow this week

A group of second year Edinburgh medics have set up a project to gather donations of clothes, toiletries and other personal care items for the city's homeless. A collection point for donations is open in Dome from 3-4pm every weekday until March 1st.

The students are working with the Edinburgh Access Practice, a doctor's surgery serving the homeless, as well as charities like the Bethany Christian Trust and Streetwork, to raise student awareness of homelessness and encourage donations for those in need.

Any clothes, toiletries or basic everyday items are welcome – from shoes and socks, to shaving foam, to sleeping bags. Men's items are in especially high demand.

The group told The Tab Edinburgh: "We see people who are homeless around Edinburgh every single day, and decided that we wanted to try and help the problem in some way. It is so easy to ignore homelessness and to be judgemental about the issues that homeless people have, so we really want to try and tackle this by researching more about it and sharing our findings with others.

"As medical students, we know that we will be working with homeless people in our careers, and want to be the most well-informed that we can be, so that we can help them to the best of our ability and prevent the awful stigma that surrounds homeless people in healthcare.

"At the same time, the idea of fast fashion is very current so what better way to ethically get rid of your old/unused clothes than by donating them to homeless people?"

More information about the group and the donations process can be found on their Facebook page, where they will also be regularly posting articles about organisations that work with the homeless as well as other related topics.