Press releases and events

Save the Children: Blue Peter announce charity partners for largest ever Christmas Appeal

Save the Children logo for press releasesSave the Children logo for press releases

Wednesday, 15, Oct 2008 12:00

Blue Peter, the longest running children’s TV show in the world, will mark its 50th anniversary this year by launching its biggest ever appeal. With three charities benefiting from the money raised by viewers, the appeal aims to be the most ambitious to date.

Each year Blue Peter choose to focus on either UK or Global issues but this year’s Blue Peter appeal will be truly global. The appeal’s aim is to help children eat and grow better food, to tackle the challenge of the global food crisis and international credit crunch, and to leave a lasting legacy for children in the UK and across the globe.

Blue Peter will work with three British charity partners: ContinYou, Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens (FCFCG) and Save the Children to ensure children in four continents are eating and growing better food as a result of the appeal.

ContinYou and FCFCG will deliver change in the UK, while Save the Children will be supporting children in three countries across three continents for the Blue Peter appeal.

All three charities have established links with schools and young people across the UK and will be calling on their support to help tip the top of the ‘Totaliser’. These strong networks also mean the appeal is expected to generate a more enthusiastic response from the public than ever before.

Tim Levell, Editor of Blue Peter, said: “We chose these charities because they really embraced the idea of working together to come up with an appeal that will have a lasting impact on children both here and abroad. When we asked the voluntary sector to collaborate, we didn't know what kind of response we'd get, but we were delighted by how these three charities got together and came up with an exciting proposal to inspire our millions of young viewers to make a difference. The food theme of the appeal also taps in to one of the most topical issues of our day. In Blue Peter's fiftieth year, and with a great new team of presenters, we hope children will be more galvanised by the appeal than ever."

The appeal will launch in November when Blue Peter will announce further details behind this year’s food theme, which countries are to be the focus, and the challenge they are setting the children and schools which are taking part.

For this year’s appeal, Blue Peter will bring back the much loved Bring & Buy Sales. More recent appeals have relied upon children recycling particular items to be exchanged for funds (shoes, and CDs).

Tim Levell says it’s a welcome return for an old favourite: “It’s been a few years since we ran Bring and Buys, but our research shows children still have a high awareness of them. We hope they will enjoy organising them as much as their parents have done in the past.”

The Appeal launches on the 4th November on BBC1 at 4.30pm.

-ENDS-

Notes to Editors

  • The Appeal will be launched on the 4 November. Further information for schools, and children will be made available on this date

  • BLUE PETER’S 50th is on 16th October. More information will be available from the BBC press office.

  • For more information on Blue Peter, contact Tara Davies, 020 8576 1074

  • www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter

    ContinYou- Changing lives through learning

    ContinYou is one of the UK’s leading learning organisations, using learning to tackle inequality and build social inclusion.

    We aim to offer opportunities to people who have gained the least from formal education and training. We work with a range of professional people, organisations and agencies to enhance what they do to change lives through learning.

    ContinYou is renowned for its pioneering experience and expertise in supporting schools and communities in a range of initiatives that have promoted, improved and measured the impact of breakfast clubs on children’s health and achievement.

    Breakfast Club Plus is an innovative and much in demand programme run by ContinYou designed to support the development of breakfast clubs across the UK. It was established in response to a successful pilot project in 1998.

    Since 1998 Breakfast Club Plus has:

    · run a number of national breakfast club schemes (over £200K has been granted to clubs to date)

    · conducted research into breakfast club provision

    · developed a training programme for local authorities, Local Strategic Partnerships and schools

    · produced clear and accessible guides and resources for breakfast club staff

    · set up the only UK website dedicated to supporting breakfast club development

    · run a number of pilot initiatives to test new ideas, such as singing breakfast clubs and breakfast reading clubs

    To find out more about ContinYou’s work, and to download free resources, visit our website: www.continyou.org.uk.

    Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens (FCFCG)

  • The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens is a charity which supports, represents and promotes community-managed farms, gardens, allotments and school farms, creating opportunities for communities to grow. FCFCG helps empower local people, often in deprived areas, to build closer, healthier and more integrated communities across the UK. We also provide the national face of the community farm and garden movement, working to raise its profile with policy-makers, funders and the public.

  • FCFCG works with 120 city and school farms, nearly 1,000 community gardens, a growing number of community-managed allotments and at least 200 groups in development.

  • These community projects create a patch of welcoming green space to visit, and offer an amazing array of benefits and opportunities which can include education programmes, play schemes, healthy living initiatives, work and skills training, social enterprises, volunteer opportunities, environmental schemes, horticultural therapy groups, facilities for people with disabilities…the list goes on.

  • Website: www.farmgarden.org.uk

    Save the Children

  • For further information from Save the Children, please contact their Press Office on 020 7012 6841, or, during, out of hours, please contact the on-call press officer on 07831 650 409

  • Save the Children is the world’s independent children’s charity. We’re outraged that millions of children are still denied proper healthcare, food, education and protection. We’re working flat out to get every child their rights and we’re determined to make further, faster changes. How many? How fast? It’s up to you. For further information about our work please visit www.savethechildren.org.uk

    Disclaimer:
    Press releases published on this page are from key opinion formers who promote their organisation's activities by subscribing to a campaign site within politics.co.uk. politics.co.uk does not endorse, edit, or attempt to balance the opinions expressed on this page. The content of press releases are wholly the responsibility of the originating company or organisation.

    • Latest press releases

    Save the Children: Anthrax infections bring new misery to cholera-hit Zimbabwe

    A deadly outbreak of anthrax has killed two children and one adult and is threatening to wipe out at least 60,000 livestock in Zimbabwe’s northern Zambezi Valley, Save the Children warned today.

    Save the Children: Hats off to UK knitters who have helped save hundreds of thousands of children's lives

    As Save the Children’s six-month long ‘Knit One, Save One’ campaign draws to a close this week the charity reports that a grand total of 650,000 baby hats were knitted by a staggering 50,000 individual knitters.

    Save the Children: Schoolchildren seized as armed groups in DR Congo recruit child soldiers

    Armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo have attacked a school in a bid to recruit child soldiers.

    Save the Children: Blue Peter puts food back on the menu with its biggest-ever appeal: Mission Nutrition

    As world food prices sky-rocket, malnutrition reigns large, and the credit crunch sees poverty take its toll, Blue Peter will tomorrow launch Mission Nutrition to help children around the world eat and grow better food.