Archives: Charity

Maybe you are a fan of The Wheels on the Bus or Wind the Bobbin up? Now you have a chance to vote for your favourite nursery rhyme over at Rhyme Stars.

BT’s Openreach will donate £1 for every vote registered and you can win an iPod touch. If 50,000 people vote by 30th April then an extra £50,000 will be donated so get voting!

Also, if you are keen on karaoke then you can record your own rhyme to raise an extra £2 for charity! Not for the shy though as everyone will be able to listen to you warbling.

Following on from the previous post, I’ve just received this from Andrew Pakes, a councillor for Southwark where the Livesey is

Hello

Thank you for signing the online ‘Save the Livesey Children’s Museum’ petition, there has been a great response from all parts of the community and from supporters across the world.

Despite the overwhelming response and positive coverage in the South London Press and Southwark News, this morning the Council tabled its recommendation that the Museum should close at the end of March. The announcement was contained in just one sentence in a 14-page report.

Southwark Council is threatening its museums with total closure from April. These are the Cuming Museum and the Livesey Museum for Children. The Livesey is especially vulnerable as it does not house a collection.

It’s depressing news, but news that we can hopefully all do something about. As the Facebook Group involved Save Southwark’s Museums, says

“These museums are located in one of the most deprived areas of London. The museums and their staff are already operating with minimal resources but reach local disadvantaged communities, schools and families and provide value for money. Everyone involved in the museums, as friend or staff, has plenty of evidence of the impact of the rich collections and innovative displays on visitors.

WebUrbanist has an interesting post on urban adventure playgrounds. The following certainly struck a chord.

In a sense, you and I have always played in “adventure playgrounds.” We created a fort in the kitchen cabinets, jumped from couch to couch across oceans; we snuck out through a hole in the fence to a new world. We climbed trees and hid in bushes. We played in the mud and the rain. We chased each other, made secret worlds with our own language. We created spaces with whatever we could find around us. Some of us played in abandoned buildings, or barns, or vacant lots between buildings, used what we found and made up stories of our lives to be. We looked everywhere to find our space.

Join in the short family walks taking place across the UK to give children orphaned by AIDS a better future. There is a small entry fee of £5 and all proceeds go to Save the Children.

The next walk is happening in Battersea Park on Sunday 19th August (10.30am start). You are given a goody bag and there is a chance to meet Children’s TV Characters.

To register and to get more information about the walks go to Pushy Mums

Go ahead and help push for change

The above new UK website called Childmissing.co.uk is being finalised.

The aim is to provide information and support to parents and families whose children go missing regularly and are involved in drugs, alcohol abuse and behaviour issues.

Approximately 70,000 children go missing per year throughout the UK so it is a problem which affects many families.

The site provides a parents forum, a directory of useful contacts and soon it will have a number for missing kids to text so that a message can be posted on the board to let their parents know they are ok.

For now and for the rest of October, things are going to get a little pinker round here.

Over in the States, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Pink for October tries to get as many websites “going pink” as part of this.

Given that Breast Cancer is an international problem, we thought we’d chip in. For more information, have a look at the Pink for October site