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People clear out the clutter for charity this festive season

Alan — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:14:14 +0000

People clear out the clutter for charity this festive season

Hair dryers, DIY equipment, foot spas and electric kettles; perfect Christmas gifts or complete turkeys. Fortunately for us, this Christmas all who visit www.preloved.co.uk can quickly turn their unwanted presents into raising money for Action for Children, the leading children’s charity. All this can be done in comfort in their own home too, so they won’t miss a second of Downton Abbey or Coronation Street.

www.preloved.co.uk is the biggest independent website selling second hand goods in the UK, and they have teamed up with Action for Children to encourage us to clear out our unwanted clutter this festive season and help to raise the vital funds needed to support some of the most neglected and vulnerable young people and children.

A new charitable campaign, ‘Clear out the Clutter and take Action for Children’, will see Preloved donate £1 to Action for Children for every person who places a FREE advert on the website at http://www.preloved.co.uk/actionforchildren. The campaign will start on Boxing Day and run for an entire month until 31^st January.

With the website attracting millions of visitors each month as one of the UK’s most popular classified advertising sites, it is hoped that ‘Clear out the Clutter and take Action for Children’ can generate thousands of pounds for Action for Children.

Ian Buzer, Managing Director of Preloved, said, “This is a win-win campaign for anyone who wants to get rid of a Christmas present that might not be to their taste, or start the New Year with a good clear out and turn their clutter into cash. For every new or existing member who takes out a FREE advert on our site it will trigger a £1 donation to Action for Children, so this is a great way to advertise unwanted items for absolutely nothing, make some extra money and raise funds for such an important UK charity.”

Emilia Carman, Head of High Value Fundraising at Action for Children, said, “This campaign is perfect for Action for Children; encouraging people to recycle is good for the environment and something we are happy to promote, and by getting a donation for every person who creates an advert, it will enable us to continue our aim of being there for the most disadvantaged, vulnerable and neglected children and young people in the UK for as long as it takes.”

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Jimi Mistry working for ActionAid on their Unforgettable Moments Campaign

admin — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:00:02 +0000

Sponsored by Action Aid

Jimi Mistry, Eastenders player turned movie star who achieved success in the UK movie business including East is East, then went on to star in Hollywood movies such as the hilarious The Guru, has just made it back from dealing with slightly more weighty matters in the African state of Rwanda.

He was visiting the region on behalf of ActionAid, more specifically he was getting involved in the organisation’s ‘Unforgettable Moments’ campaign. His trip allowed him to view first-hand just how child sponsorship is making a very significant and very real difference in the lives of Rwandan children and also their extended communities.

Back in slightly cooler and rain-soaked climes, he made an appearance on Daybreak on ITV1 to talk to the public about what he saw and experienced in Africa and tell viewers about a child he sponsored. Although Jimi has a 10 year old little girl of his own he felt he wanted to reach out and try to help a similar but disadvantaged child in Africa, which is why he took up sponsorship himself several years ago.

He went out to the country which is still a long way from recovery from the multiple and bloody conflicts that rocked it down to its foundations. He says that he, of course, wants the best possible upbringing for his daughter Elin, but wanted to go out to Rwanda to see first hand if child sponsorship really did bring a better life for the kids in this devastated country.

His first impression was a little shocking; he was amazed just how stunningly beautiful the country is, not the mental picture that most of us would have of a poor African nation.

He paid a visit to Mpanga Primary School to see what sponsorship actually does, he found out that in this particular case the school its self had been relocated from a difficult to reach and treacherous mountainside to a close and convenient location benefiting the kids and the whole community. He saw for himself how a tiny regular donation can have a very real impact on children and their families.

ActionAid is asking people across the UK to celebrate their unforgettable moments just like Jimi. For 50p a day – the cost of a pint of milk – unforgettable moments can be created for children across the developing world.

Click here to sponsor a child with ActionAid

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KidsCo! Want you to Save an Orang-utan

Alan — Tue, 31 May 2011 06:34:39 +0000

A competition has been launched by the international children’s channel KidsCo to make children aware of the world’s endangered species. The competition launched today, in collaboration with the WWF, offers the 10 winning children the change to adopt an Orang-utan.

They will get their own cuddly Boo toy, a book about Orang-utans, photographs, and an exclusive magazine for adopters. All children also get helpful tips for helping the environment and information on the many species that are now classed as endangered.

Viewers can enter the competition by visiting KidsCo’s website: http://www.kidscotv.tv/, and playing the Boo and Me game – ‘Boo’s River Clean Up’. They then need to answer the following multiple choice question:

What does Boo collect in the game?
a. Banana skins
b. Plastic bottles
c. Car tyres

The last day for entries is 6 July 2011. Winners will be picked at random and notified by email.

The competition ties in with the launch of KidsCo’s original production, Boo & Me, which follows the adventures of the mischievous orang-utan called Boo, Aiman and his cousin Yasmin.

Paul Robinson, Global CEO at KidsCo said: “Preserving the environment is an important aspect of KidsCo’s philosophy. By offering children around the world the chance to sponsor an orang-utan, we hope to help an endangered species whilst also educating them about environmental issues. We are thrilled to be supporting WWF; it is the world’s leading environmental organisation and is doing great work to help save endangered species.”

Diane Walkington, Head of Species at WWF-UK said: “A century ago, there were around 230,000 orang-utans in Borneo and Sumatra. But within the last decade alone, their numbers have fallen dramatically and only around 62,500 now remain in the wild. WWF is to working to protect orang-utan habitat, to restore damaged forest areas and to improve prevent the trade in live orang-utans, so it’s great that KidsCo has chosen to support our work on the issue.”

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Feed The Children’s Breakfast2Live campaign

admin — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:26:32 +0000

Children’s charity, Feed The Children (UK)’s, is encouraging people ‘to go to work on an egg’ and help feed children both in this country and abroad. This is the message for their Breakfast2Live campaign, which takes place from Sunday 20th to Saturday 26th February.

Cafes, restaurants, schools, colleges, businesses and people at home can get involved by staging breakfast events during that week to raise money for the charity’s life saving projects in developing countries and breakfast clubs in this country.

Children in this country benefit from the charity’s work by being given breakfast to start their school day, which is known to help both behaviour and learning. In Africa the charity focuses on helping to protect and feed children – it costs just 17p to feed a child for a day or £5 for a month.

As charity chief executive officer Brian Main explains, “The egg is the start of life and we want to make sure that life goes on in the countries we serve and that disadvantaged children in this country make the most of their school day by being fuelled up by breakfast. We don’t mind what is on people’s breakfast menus but we thought that eggs, whether they be fried, scrambled or in an omelette would remind people of Feed The Children!”

The charity has a number of ideas that people can use:
· You can host a breakfast and invite friends (get items donated and then charge a small fee of say £5.00 per breakfast).
· Restaurants and cafes can donate a small percentage of the price of a special ‘Breakfast2Live’ on the menu to the charity, or have a collection tin on the day and ask for donations to the charity from everyone eating in the restaurant.
· If you have regular coffee mornings, make a batch of cakes or breakfast muffins, invite your friends along and if everyone pays about £1.50 for a cup of tea or coffee and a muffin you can raise money that way.
For more ideas go to http://www.breakfast2live.org.uk or to take part, call Feed The Children now on 0118 932 0095 for more information.

Feed The Children works worldwide, as well as within the UK, to develop sustainable communities and provide food and other necessities for those in great need. The charity concentrates aid on children suffering the affects of poverty, especially those orphaned or abandoned. The charity believes that wherever there is famine, conflict, disease or poverty, it is always the children who are most vulnerable.

Feed The Children (UK) registered in 1994 and over the years the charity has helped millions of children and their families both at home and abroad. The charity relies on gifts from generous companies, individuals and organisations to donate the goods and financial assistance needed in order to support the various humanitarian and relief projects.

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Footsteps Foundation Spider Charity Campaign – helping disabled children

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:56:32 +0000

This Christmas many families with disabled children won’t be asking for the latest toys and gadgets but will be asking for help towards essential Footsteps physiotherapy using the renowned ‘Spider’ because the best present they could give their child is the chance to walk.

Footsteps Foundation is launching a Christmas campaign asking the public, local businesses and trusts to give a disabled child the gift of physiotherapy as part of their journey of learning to walk. An extraordinary apparatus called ‘The Spider’ is used at the Footsteps centre, along with traditional physiotherapy, to enable children to experience freedom to move on their own and for physiotherapists to implement a full course of exercises in any chosen position.

Nick Streeter from Witney whose daughter Chloe attends Footsteps, says: “Chloe has really benefitted from coming to Footsteps. The best present we could give her is the ability to walk unaided so we channel everything into making that happen!”

Pip Hoyer Millar, the Founder of Footsteps Foundation explains: “We set up Footsteps Foundation to help families access intensive physiotherapy at the Footsteps Centre. Families also often fundraise themselves although how they have the time I never understand! This year we want to make it easier for those families and do a big fundraising push at Christmas.”

“Having a child with special needs is incredibly difficult emotionally, physically and financially although parents find the rewards overwhelmingly wonderful. The fact is you would always wish your child could play, talk and walk in the way they are supposed to. We are hoping the public and businesses are going to share our belief that Christmas is a wonderful time for remembering how lucky you and your family are and how we can always help vulnerable people around us.”

Another parent Richard Towers says: “We will be asking our family to buy Oscar a session at Footsteps for Christmas to help pay for this essential therapy. The best thing is that it will actually seem like a gift for Oscar because he loves going! He loves the feeling of independence in the Footsteps Spider and enjoys all the games they play whilst exercising!”

The charity has raised £301,000 in two years to help provide intensive physiotherapy. Already fully booked for much of 2011, the Warborough based Footsteps Centre has tripled in size in the last two years to cope with the demand.

Website: www.footstepsfoundation.com

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Donate unwanted underwear to raise money for charity and get a £5 underwear voucher

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:43:12 +0000

Lancashire-based maternity underwear specialist bras4mums is offering a birthday present during September to all customers recycling their unwanted bras with the company.

Research carried out earlier this year by OnePoll.com found that the typical female owns 13 bras but only wears eight of them regularly. With the average bra costing £28.00, that’s £3.47 billion worth of bras doing nothing! bras4mums are offering women the chance to get these ‘old’ bras doing good elsewhere.

bras4mums founder Tracey-Jane Hughes, who also runs the mastectomy specialist company bras4all, explained: ”We’ve been collecting unwanted bras and new cotton knickers for our “Knickers for Africa” appeal for 18 months now. We’ve sent boxes and boxes of bras & knickers on to the charities we support. Now we’d like to thank our loyal customers on our second birthday, and encourage more women to clean out their draws to help others”

All customers who send their clean unwanted bras during September will receive a £5 voucher as a thank you for their commitment to recycling and helping others. This voucher can be used with either bras4mums or bras4all online stores, or at the Lancashire shop.

T-J added, “All the recycled bras are split between the Knickers4Africa appeal, and raising money for the Breast Cancer Campaign Charity. We have a pink box inside our shop for clean but useable bras to be put in, and another for new cotton knickers. We’ve had North West companies collect in their work places, including the National Museum in Liverpool who collected 380 pairs of new knickers for the Knickers4Africa Appeal which has been a great boost to the campaign”.

Unwanted bras and new cotton knickers can be sent to the office at White Bear Marina, Park Road, Adlington. PR7 4HZ. 1 voucher per customer.

The £5 voucher can be used on goods purchased over £50 in value until the end of October in the shop, or online with bras4mums (www.bras4mums.co.uk) or bras4all (www.bras4all.com).

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Donate your old footballs to Africa – watch this plea by football legend John Barnes

admin — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:26:23 +0000

The World Cup is fast approaching and chances are your children will be eager to get in on the footballing action. If you are thinking about splashing out on a new ball as yours have seen better days then hold tight, as there is a much better way to bag yourself a shiny new football and help others in the process.

Hyundai has teamed up with SOS Africa and footballing legend John Barnes to help bring new life to your unloved balls. During May and early June a team will be polishing up and bestowing some much needed TLC on all balls bought to their dealerships. They will then send these along with thousands of brand new balls together with 50 sets of school football kits to South Africa. These will then be collected by SOS Africa and distributed among 50 townships schools, 5 in each of the areas surrounding the key stadia.

And if that wasn’t enough, as a thank you for your support, Hyundai will replace your ball with a brand new one so your budding footballers can spend the summer practicing in style.

In the following video John Barnes shows you what you need to do as well as how it will benefit children in poorer countries.

To see the townships and kids that will benefit from Football Scrappage visit www.sosafrica.com

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Tsunami orphans in Southern India rehoused in time for Christmas thanks to India Direct charity

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:20:03 +0000

Ninety-five children, victims of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami which decimated their lives five years ago, will this year celebrate Christmas in a new purpose built children’s home in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, provided and maintained by Cheshire based charity India Direct (www.indiadirect.org.uk).

‘Joy’ Home, as it is called, replaces temporary accommodation rented in the immediate aftermath of the Tsunami by the charity, which has cared for destitute children at Bethel Home in Chennai since 1995, and now cares for Joy Home too. Chairman of India Direct, Architect David Armstrong, was in Chennai when the Tsunami struck. “At the time all we could do was provide material help to some of the more remote and harder hit villages, but we also knew we had to do something meaningful for their future.”

That future began with designing and building the charity’s second home whilst establishing a temporary shelter catering both for orphans and children whose parents could no longer look after them. Macclesfield based Armstrong Architects’ design is based on the traditional Indian ‘Keralan Christian’ style, featuring an open central courtyard which ensures good all round natural light and ventilation for the dormitories. Now the new home is a hub of learning that extends beyond the lives of the children who live there. During the day it becomes a tailoring school for children of fishing families in an innovative scheme where graduates are given a sewing machine and tailor’s kit to take back to their communities and set up in business.

This year, Bethel and Joy Homes also played host to students from Poynton High School who have been closely involved with the project for the past 5 years. A play park financed by the school was opened at Joy when they visited. Several classes at PHS now sponsor Indian children, which costs just £25 per child per month, providing that child with accommodation, food, clothes, schooling and basic medical care.

“Our experience in Chennai proved invaluable when it came to helping the Tsunami victims and shows just how much can be achieved working with a few good people. This year we can see a Christmas with a future that was unthinkable for these children a few years ago,” adds Armstrong.

The major challenge for 2010 will be the addition of a separate accommodation block to comply with recent changes in the laws covering orphanages by the local authorities. “We’ve been so lucky and privileged in what we’ve achieved so far and the people’s whose lives we’ve reached, yet there’s so much more we want to do,” concludes Armstrong.

India Direct was formed in 1995 following a meeting with Pastor Martin from Madras who was caring at that time for 7 orphans in a rented mud hut which had been flooded in the Monsoons. With no support available locally, India Direct was formed to provide a permanent home for these children. Bethel home opened in 1996 and is now a permanent, happy home for about 50 destitute or orphaned children.

Today, a total of 150 children are given a home for as long as they need it. They live in a relaxed family style environment and are given complete care: clean water, food, clothes, full-time education, training for jobs, medical care, pets and friends.

All Trustees and support staff of India Direct are volunteers, allowing the charity to send 100% of all donations to work in India and cover its administration from a portion of reclaimed tax.

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Samaritans Lisa’s Story Advert

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:57:26 +0000

We’ve just been given the video for the Samaritans Lisa’s Story new TV advert being shown this November.

As we move towards the Christmas season, makes you think about all those who aren’t lucky enough to be part of a happy family life.

To donate to Samaritans and help them continue to answer every call, 24/7, 365 days a year please visit: www.samaritans.org/lisa.

Here’s the video:

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Shoe Aid for Africa – UK Families Making a Difference

admin — Wed, 20 May 2009 20:28:26 +0000

The collection for the 2008/9 Shoe Aid for Africa campaign took place last October and finished poignantly on Child Poverty Day – Friday 17th October. Children and families across the UK rallied together to donate their unwanted shoes in a bid to change another child’s life, in Africa.

Shoe care experts Kiwi launched the campaign to give UK families a chance to change lives in Africa. Children’s shoes from the UK, which would otherwise have been thrown away, will be cherished by children who have never known the luxury of owning a pair. This first pair of shoes gives these children enormous self-esteem and pride.

A selection of schools, Sure Start centres as well as Scout groups across the country kindly donated over 20,000 pair of shoes to the cause last year. Kiwi representatives spent time in UK schools talking to children about the shoes they donated and how they felt about helping a child in Africa. The children wrote letters to accompany the shoes wishing the children in Africa happiness and describing life in England.

Here is an example of one of the letters that were written

Andy from Cippenham Primary School, Slough

Hello my name is Andy and I am 9 years old. The shoes I have donated are the ones I dearly loved and I played football with them and all kinds of sports with them. I hope you have a wonderful time with them. I want to be a footballer when I grow up and if that doesn’t go well I can always get a job at the theatre selling tickets and popcorn. I am happy to give you these shoes because I don’t know what I would do without my shoes. I don’t know what you like but I certainly love animals and if you can, can you please give me a new species of animal, especially cats, I adore them.
From Andy
I hope you really like my shoes and rock on!

Just over a month after the collection, sorting began at the Planet Aid UK warehouse in Corby, Northamptonshire. Planet Aid UK is the British member of Humana People to People. On 20th November 2008 Kiwi representatives wrapped up warm and got stuck in helping to sort thousands of pairs of shoes.

The country identified as being most in need by the African branch of Humana, ADPP, was Mozambique. The shoes started their three-month journey to Mozambique just before Christmas and were shipped via Durban in South Africa to Beira, the primary port of Mozambique. At present when second hand clothes and shoes are distributed in Africa it is common for the recipient to be charged a small sum to cover the transport and handling costs. In the case of the ‘Shoe Aid for Africa’ campaign, all costs are totally funded by Kiwi so that both adult and children’s shoes can be given out for free.

Whilst in Mozambique, Kiwi representatives spent a week in April travelling around ADPP programmes including TCE (Total Control of the Epidemic) HIV/AIDS camps, townships and street children’s schools and orphanages in the Sofala and Manica provinces of Mozambique. The Kiwi team were greeted with wonderful African singing and dancing at the symbolic distributions. They spent time meeting children and learning about their daily lives. They also took with them footballs and plenty of classroom equipment including crayons, pencils and notepads to aid the children in their classes. With their new equipment the children wrote letters of thanks back to the children in the UK. This enabled the children to engage and understand each other’s diverse cultures and made the donations far more personal for the recipients of the shoes.

ADPP street school in Chimoio, Mozambique

My name is Adam Fernando. I’m from Mozambique and I have short hair and brown eyes. I would like to say to you thank you for offering us the shoes. I used to walk bare feet but due to your help, now I’m happy with the shoes. In Mozambique the climate is temperate, it’s sometimes cold and sometimes rainy.

At one particular school in Chimoio called “Formigas de Futuro”, meaning “ants of the future”, the Kiwi team spent an afternoon listening to a cultural programme of song and dance followed by an exhausting football game! The children loved playing in the long grass and sweltering heat, most of them barefoot, and they certainly gave the Kiwi team a good game!

The experience was a real eye-opener and it soon became evident how important education was in changing attitudes and driving development in Mozambique, which remains one of the world’s poorest countries.
Director for Kiwi, Margaret Jobling, is thrilled with the response to the Shoe Aid for Africa campaign and overwhelmed by the number of shoes donated. She hopes that it’s success can be built upon with this year’s campaign:
‘The Shoe Aid for Africa campaign has allowed us at Kiwi to engage with children around the country and educate them on the difficulties children face in less privileged parts of the world. It was a fantastic for members of the team to visit Mozambique and take part in the distribution of the shoes first hand. They were privileged to meet the Humana representatives working there and learn about the fantastic work they are doing across numerous projects. Getting actively involved at every stage of the campaign enabled us to see how Kiwi’s support can make a difference and drives us to build on this success for Shoe Aid for Africa 2009’.

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