Neelam Rhuksar, Project Officer
Over the summer months MOMGF have collected school uniforms in Canklow and organised a couple of days of swapping, the incentive behind this is to work in partnership with families and ease the burden and stress that can be caused when having to provide uniforms every term.
We are hoping this will have an all-round benefit for the Canklow schools’ community, there are several benefits to uniform swap whether that be saving money to recycling and helping the environment. People have been extremely generous in donating and swapping uniforms, some families are struggling with increasing costs and in some circumstances find it difficult to provide new uniforms, with this project families have had the opportunity to source uniforms, re use uniforms and support the community.
2/08/23 – Neelam attended Canklow Pavilion today to be there for any uniform donations. We had 2 big bag full dropped off, which gave a good head start for Uniforms to be available on the day. The Uniforms were clean and usable which were requested on the leaflets which were given to the local primary school in Canklow.
03/08/23 – Neelam along with Julie did leaflet drops to the local businesses in Canklow. They managed to get 6 different places to keep leaflets one including KFC which was an accomplishment in itself as they were allowed to be displayed right on the counter beside the menu.
15/08/23 – Neelam went and picked up uniforms from houses in Canklow who had called for their uniforms to be collected. There were collections done from 3 houses. It gave us a lot more uniform to start the Uniform swap with tomorrow. They also had donations of coats and other school supplies which was also very helpful.
16/08/23 – For the Uniform Swap they engaged with around 20 people and managed to help a few people for their kids’ uniforms. One lady was very chuffed and said she had ‘saved a fortune because of this’ and was happy with the condition of the clothes.
There were a lot of donations, so another uniform swap was held on the 30th of August which helped another 12 families.
Feedback from the swap was very positive, families have felt empowered by being part of a community project and have asked them to return in October half term.