SMALL STEPS DOCS SCREENING AT GLASTONBURY 2013!!!

We are all very excited at Small Steps HQ because this year, not one...not even two but ALL of the Small Steps documentaries will be screened at the biggest festival in the UK. 

Glastonbury is making a comeback after a fallow year in 2012 and will stage some huge acts such as The Rolling Stones, Artic Monkeys and Mumford and Sons.  We will, of course, be asking all the celebrities performing at the festival to donate their shoes.  Ronnie Wood from The Rolling Stones have already confirmed he will donate the shoes he performs in this year so that's a good start to shoe chasing season and we are hoping that the rest of the Stones will follow in his steps! 

We'll also be featuring on Glastonbury's very own radio station Worthy FM so listen out for us!

Critical Waste manage Glastonbury's Festival Recycling, amongst other and already donate 10% of their revenue from recycling to Small Steps Project each year.  This year, not only will they be donating money, they are also donating thousands of pairs of wellington boots and gloves for our next project. And they will even be driving the convoy to deliver them so we can distribute them on the dumps of Romania later in the year!  Please watch their film to find out more about what they do and check them out on Facebook and Twitter.

We also have volunteer tickets for the sold out festival! If you would like to volunteer for Small Steps as a litter picker, for just one weekend, you will get a ticket to the sold out Festival and back stage camping.

Small Steps & Glastonbury ask all volunteer litter pickers to donate a percentage of your ticket cost back to the charity- we reccomend a minium of £50. But you can donate your entire ticket cost. If everyone did that it would make over £10,000 for children that have to litter pick every day of their lives!

We have limited spaces and the deadline is Wednesday 29th May. Please email here. 

International Day Against Child Labour

On 12th June it is the International Day Against Child Labour.  Launched in 2002, this day serves as a reminder of all the children (estimated as 15.5 million) around the world who are forced into child labour.  Forced labour from a young age mean that these children do not have a real childhood, they don't have access to education, a safe and secure home, health care or even time to play with friends.

Like the children we find working on rubbish dumps, there are many more children who are hidden from public view who are trapped in a cycle of poverty and often abuse.  Whether working in a factory or as a bricklayer, as a prostitute, child soldier or being involved in drug trafficking this is a situation that must be stopped.

This year get involved and join the campaign to eliminate underage child labour in domestic work and insist on the correct protection for those of working age.  Don't ignore it.  This is an issue that everyone should be aware.  Make a stand on 12th June.

WYCHWOOD FESTIVAL SCREENING

The first screening of the year!  Small Steps will be screening the 'Next Steps' documentary at Wychwood Festival in Cheltenham this year.  The festival is on from 31st May to 2nd June so if you've got a ticket, come along and see us in the cinema tent!

The Human League, The Beat, Toploader and Bill Bailey are also among the headliners at this family festival.  We hope to see you there!

The New Small Steps Office

At the end of March Small Steps moved into a new office in Archway and we're delighted to have our very own office space, a meeting room and some fellow charities working around us.  We've added all our extra contact details to the Contact Us page so you know where to find us.

With this new development we are now able to accommodate more volunteers.  With our Vodaphone winners and Celebrity Shoe chasers back in force we are as busy as ever.  With a growing team, 2013 is looking like it's going to be a great year.

If you are interested in volunteering for us, please get in touch.  Send your CV with details of your skillset and interests with the title VOLUNTEER and email it to us here.  We are currently looking for a photography archivist, press and PR volunteers and people with media experience who can commit to the London Celebrity Shoe event campaign.

Project Update!

Small Steps Project has been delivering lots of new projects over the winter. In November we set up several new nursery provisons in Siem Reap, where we also delivered a shoe distribution with ODA.

For Christmas we sent a convoy of aid over to the children in Romania with Love Light Romania who not only distributed the aid on our behalf but also had fantastic photographer, Richard Feaver, document the delivery of aid.

In January we set up numerous projects in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. The first was an Outreach Project that collected the children from the dump and brought them to our partner project's centre, Let Us Create.  

We also employed a driver, and a social worker to oversee the outreach project and to work on improving the conditions of the families homes, as well as plans to relocate those who no longer wish to scavenge.

Within the LUC centre we funded a Breakfast Club Project for all the dump children and all the LUC children who are also street and beach scavengers to improve their nutrition.

We then created an early years provision and nursery that we built and funded within the LUC centre.  As well as funding the Cambodian nursery teacher we also brought over an early years consultant from the UK to set up the running of the nursery and the routines for the little ones.

Before we left we started a hygiene project which provides toothpaste and brushes from London dentist, Smiles for You, as well as toiletries, hand sanitiser from Petter Pharmacy and we bought a washing machine to keep all the childrens clothes clean as well as new clothes for the children. This was all pulled together by LUC's excellent hygiene education programme.

As well as developing the hygiene Project we are currently working on a Mum's Project, offering retraining and employment for the mums of the dump.

All of the projects that we set up in Sihanoukville are sustainable so the impact on the lives of these children will be huge. It has come a long way from just a pair shoes (which it goes without saying they are all provided with) and it also means that it requires ongoing funding.  So please keep donating, we do not recieve any government funding so all this work is down to all the public donations you have given and two fantastic corporate donors: Scott Dunn and First Mile.

So please spread the word because we are a small charity having huge impact and we make sure your donation goes to those who need it most. All these small steps have made a real difference, so please keep taking them and encourage others to do so to, because every £1 is not a drop in the ocean with us, it has a massive impact on real little lives.