Our Christmas Challenge 2021 raised over £3.75 million for children living in poverty in London

This year’s Christmas Challenge was The Childhood Trust’s biggest campaign, raising over £3.75 million pounds! This year the Trust has funded the delivery of 98 charities projects across London to alleviate the impact of poverty on children and young people living in the capital.

A new charity that The Childhood Trust match-funded this year was The Ben Kinsella Trust, a charity working to tackle knife crime in London. They commented that their “£50,000 target seemed ambitious at best, or perhaps unrealistic and fool-hardy given that this was our first campaign! But with tremendous help from the Childhood Trust – who shared advice and made valuable links with other organisations – we were absolutely thrilled to have exceeded our target and raised an incredible £52,000.”

This year’s campaign was supported by The Childhood Trust’s Report “Cold, Hungry Stressed”, in which charities, families and parents were interviewed to document the way in which cuts to universal credit uplift, fuel price rises and food price inflation are impacting children.

The report was featured in the media, which helped raise awareness about the cause during this year’s campaign. The BBC interviewed our CEO, Laurence Guinness, and a parent struggling with food poverty; the BBC also interviewed our charity partner, Spring Community Hub, about the vital support they’re providing to families. The Mirror covered our statistics on the impact of universal credit uplift cuts, and politics.co.uk wrote an article about children suffering from food poverty over Christmas.

Our research is vital in advocating for disadvantaged children in London. Our CEO, Laurence Guinness, commented that “with growing levels of child poverty in London our Christmas Challenge campaign was more important than ever. The success of the campaign means that thousands of children across London will be able to access vitally needed practical and emotional support throughout 2022. On their behalf, we thank all the amazing donors who gave so generously.”