Clean Up Child Hygiene Poverty

Fanclub

Client: smol

Imagine not being able to afford the basic essentials to keep yourself or your loved ones clean. That’s hygiene poverty. It has a heart-breaking impact on children’s wellbeing and their education, and it’s the UK’s teachers who are witnessing the effects that this is having as parents struggle to send their kids to school in clean clothes.

Despite well documented research pinpointing the growing effects of hygiene poverty on the nation’s school children, incredibly, it was not placed on the agenda of the Government’s newly-formed Child Poverty Taskforce. Faced with this stark omission, laundry challenger brand, smol, set out to headline the scope and severity of child hygiene poverty and get it the recognition it deserves at a governmental level. A washing line consisting of 40 school uniforms, representing the £40m spent by the UK’s teachers on child hygiene poverty from their own pockets, was erected in the shadow of Westminster to launch the campaign alongside teachers to the media and the government.

The results: 32,152 washes donated in October to smol’s Donate A Wash and a 400% increase in donations to The Hygiene Bank compared to a regular month and 200% increase in engagement on their Facebook and LinkedIn pages.

But ultimately, the campaign elicited an important response from the Government acknowledging the campaign with a written statement picked up by the media promising ‘to listen to frontline staff and struggling families… and tackle the challenges felt by those living in poverty" as part of their Child Poverty Taskforce.