A safe place to sleep…

There’s 24 hours left to vote for Little Village in the Aviva Community Fund. We’re asking for support to cover the costs of re-gifting 250 cots to families across London in 2019.

This is a subject very close to our hearts. Here at Little Village we’ve already given out over 850 beds since we launched — an average of 10 a week. A shocking 46 per cent of the families we see don’t have a safe place for their babies to sleep.

Behind these statistics are children whose lives are being blighted by the most basic kind of material poverty. The children we see are having to sleep in beds too small for the number of people they are accommodating. Babies are sleeping on towels and sofa cushions, or in dirty, broken cots.

We are shocked how frequently we hear these stories, here in London, the UK”s wealthiest city, and home to more multi-millionaires than any other city in the world.

But it is a story echoed by others. The Buttle Trust estimates that over 400,000 children are without beds in the UK. And levels of child poverty here are ‘staggering’, according to Philip Alston, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, who recently spent two weeks examining the issues*. He found that 1.5 million people in this country are classed as destitute and unable to afford the basic essentials.

Alston says that child poverty is not just a disgrace, ‘but a social calamity and an economic disaster’. He noted that the people he met were choosing between feeding their children and washing their clothes. Growing up below the breadline has a far-reaching impact into children’s futures, with clear knock on effects on life chances, health and educational attainment.

Which brings us back to today. We have over 30 families on our cot waiting list. We know we can find the cots to pass on to them from our amazing community of donors. The Aviva funds would enable us to buy the new mattresses we give out with every cot, plus the cost of new screws where they’re needed, and delivery to those families who don’t have access to transport.

A safe place to sleep isn’t a lot to ask for in London in the 21st century. Please help us to ensure we reach as many kids without beds as possible by taking two minutes to head over to the Aviva website and lend us your support.

*you can read the full report here.