Eight year old Florrie Legge from Wombourne near Wolverhampton is taking on a 20 mile bike ride to raise money for Children on the Edge on Saturday 12th June. She hopes to raise an incredible £1500. ​

It’s been an exciting day joining our partners The Body Shop at Home for their Global Kickstart Conference to launch 2021. 

As well as looking forward it was a moment to say thank you for such an unexpected and record breaking year of fundraising for Children on the Edge. We could never have known just how challenging a year 2020 would be when we last met with thousands of consultants in February, and yet you have risen to every challenge and created incredible moments of change for Children on the Edge. 

The Body Shop at Home Spring Live! was an epic success; with consultants raising an incredible £65,209 in just a day. More than double the previous record total last September.

​The Body Shop at Home’s Spring Live! event gathered 2,400 like minded entrepreneurial consultants to celebrate 25 years of the business and 25 years of female empowerment.
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Along with raffle tickets and t-shirts, our team were armed with over 5000 goody bags, filled with products generously donated by The Body Shop. At an astonishing rate of selling one bag per second, every bag was sold in record time.

Together, this all helped to raise an absolutely whopping £65,209 in just one day. This is more than double the previous record fundraising total from September’s Christmas Conference.

​The wonderful The Body Shop At Home team and consultants have gone above and beyond with their fundraising for Children on the Edge each year, and 2017 was no different.

Smashing a fundraising target of £85,000, they raised a staggering £113,688 through their Body Shop parties, regular monthly donations, fashion shows, ball nights and by taking on a huge range of runs and cycles. 
 
On Saturday 3rd February Ben, Esther, Abigail and our amazing volunteers Helen and Jane, travelled from Chichester to Telford for their Spring Conference, armed with 1,700 goody bags generously donated by The Body Shop, raffle tickets and t-shirts. The team always look forward to the energy and generosity shown in the rapid fundraising for vulnerable children at this event.
 
The result was an incredible £21,099 raised in one day. This is a phenomenal record amount for a February conference, and we were blown away. 
 
Our Executive Director, Ben shared news from Uganda and described why we are beginning work in a new community called Wandago. We also celebrated consultants who rose to the challenge of raising more than £100 at their parties in the run up to Christmas.
 
Ben says “Our fundraising targets are always ambitious and once again you all smashed it! Your ongoing passion and support for Children on the Edge is helping us to create safer environments for more and more vulnerable children in Uganda each year”.
 
The Body Shop and Children on the Edge have worked together since Dame Anita Roddick founded the charity in 1990. Driven by her passion for sustainable and ethical products, Dame Anita hoped to provide a similar approach to charity work. After witnessing the atrocities befalling children in Romania following the war, she created Children on the Edge to create hope, life, colour and fun for some of the world’s most forgotten children.
 
Thank you to all those who are supporting us to continue this work. If you are a consultant from The Body Shop at Home and you'd like to find out how to get more involved, just e-mail [email protected].

On July 16th, Christine Smith, who works for The Body Shop At Home took part in the Windmill Half Marathon in Lytham for Children on the Edge.

Christine raised £100 - all helping to support our work with vulnerable children around the world. £100 is enough to cover the costs of educating 100 Syrian refugee children at one of our tented schools in Lebanon for a day.

It was Christine's first ever half marathon, she said "it's safe to say that training didn't go to plan so I kind of 'winged it' on the day but absolutely loved it, mentally (although I'm not sure my body felt the same way as I crossed he finishing line!)".

She explains why she chose to fundraise for Children on the Edge: 

"As a Consultant with The Body Shop at Home, Children on the Edge is a charity close to my heart and I follow their activities closely. I like to do something additional to the general fundraising I do at Body Shop parties each year. My children have done things like carol singing around our estate and 'Iron Kids' and last year I did the Yorkshire 3 Peaks".

Christine started running in January last year but got out of the habit during the summer holidays, so she was determined that this year she would do more than a 10k. Inspired by an unplanned 10 mile run, she signed up to the Windmill Half Marathon that night. She said: "I knew that doing it for charity would keep me motivated when training".

We asked Christine what was the best and hardest part of taking on the Windmill Half Marathon:

"The best part was without a doubt the sense of achievement and the camaraderie of the other runners - everyone really encouraged each other. The hardest was when my hip started complaining around the half way mark and the change in position to go downhill on the last stretch caused pain that quite literally took my breath away. It wouldn't put me off doing it again though!"

When asked what she'd say to someone else thinking about fundraising for Children on the Edge she said: 

"Just do it. It doesn't have to be huge and every little helps".

Would you like to fundraise for Children on the Edge by taking on a personal challenge, like a walk, run or cycle? Find out more. 

This time last year, we'd just returned from our first ever playscheme in Loco slum, Uganda. We began working with this community in January 2016 and last years' playscheme was a way for us to introduce ourselves to the local community. We organised a week of activities with the COTE Africa team for local children, and we returned in May 2017 to do the same again.

Our staff and volunteers have just returned from this years' playscheme and were blown away by the transformation from last year. Sarah Collinson who ran the playscheme with the help of three The Body Shop at Home volunteers, said:

​"This year's playscheme showed us how much progress is happening week by week in Loco. The work of our Child Protection Teams, the new Early Childhood Development Centre offering education to the most vulnerable young children, and the work of all the COTE Africa staff has made such a huge difference compared to just a year ago. This was particularly clear in how quickly the children adapted to games and lessons; treated each other with kindness; and showed vital awareness about keeping safe and clean. This is a testament to all the training and support that is going on behind the scenes for the past year".

In January 2016, the people in Loco said they had no hope. Unemployment and income poverty had left households vulnerable and their children were prone to exploitation, malnutrition, physical and sexual abuse. The Chairman of our Child Protection Team (CPT) in Loco, said “People here have had many organisations come and start things and then go, promise things and then disappoint, they didn’t believe things could change”.

But ten local people were trained up to work in their area as part of the CPT, to educate people about child protection and support them to create a protective environment. A year on we have the full participation of local people, not only the CPT volunteers but also parents getting involved with education, mothers creating new businesses to pay for their children to go to school and local services engaging with the Loco community to create a better environment for children. We also built a brand new Early Childhood Development Centre (ECD) to offer early years education for some of the most vulnerable children in the community.

​The Chairman of the CPT now describes how “People see workshops, they see a team that deals with their problems, they see a drop in domestic violence and crime, they see their children on a playscheme and a new Early Childhood Development Centre being built, and it gives them hope. These things have never happened in Loco. Hope is knowing things can change”.

The transformation in the community was obvious at this year's playscheme. For example, the children were much better behaved than last year, where we saw a lot of competition for toys and activities between the children. But this year, the older children were looking out for the younger children on the playscheme, ensuring they were safe and able to take part in the activities fairly.

Last year, serious health problems emerged in the community during the playscheme, and our team adapted the activities to include a full day’s training on health and hygiene with songs about hand washing and puppet shows on keeping clean and safe from illness. This year, it was clear that health and hygiene are now fully engrained with the children who understand why this is so important. The children are now quick to wash their hands before eating their daily porridge; running to the queue at the tap to wash meticulously with soap whilst singing "this is the way we wash our hands" song.

Other aspects of sanitation had also vastly improved this year. All the children understood the importance of using the bathroom facilities and made sure they washed their hands after going to the toilet. This is something that ECD Centre staff take very seriously, checking the children as they leave the toilet and sending them back to wash their hands if they aren't wet! 

Sarah said: "The COTE Africa Team are running another playscheme in December, and I know they are going to see more signs of transformation with the children. Things change so quickly when the community work together and as other aspects of our work, like the education loans, get more and more established, everyone is looking forward to see the difference made in Loco".

Read more about our work in Uganda
Read more about this years' playscheme