News, Press and Resources

Millions of adults are experiencing hygiene poverty in the UK right now. We see this in our community. We’re supporting more and more people who are being faced with the impossible decision to eat, heat or keep clean. 

What is hygiene poverty? Hygiene poverty is not being able to afford everyday personal hygiene products many of us take for granted Many people experiencing hygiene poverty face the impossible choice to heat, eat or keep clean.

Last year, we published our landmark, Human Right to Hygiene report which mapped the systems that drive hygiene poverty and outlined a set of clear steps to tackle hygiene poverty in a Roadmap for Change.  One year later, we wanted to share how we’ve worked to tackle hygiene poverty, the impact we’ve had to-date, and our next steps along our Roadmap for Change.  

We are pleased to host a guest blog from Chloe Maclellan, Poverty Proofing Coordinator at Children North East. Chloe shares what students in Poverty Proofing©  audits have said about hygiene poverty and gives some suggestions for how schools and other organisations working with young people can combat hygiene poverty.

Charitable organisations face all sorts of challenges on a daily basis. Gaining additional resources can therefore make a huge difference and that’s why we’ve been working with Charity Digital, who share our passion for maximising the good that business can do in supporting communities.  

Our thoughts are with everyone affected by the Turkey – Syria Earthquake.

Last week our whole team came together to transform a mixed donation of toiletries and dental products from Colgate, into columns of shippable boxes of toothpaste and shelves of toiletries ready for re-packaging. 

Thanks to the People’s Postcode Lottery, we received dedicated funding of £30k to help smaller organisations in our network access essential products, which encourage more people to take up other support services such as counselling, debt support and refuge services.  Recognising that the cost-of-living crisis is having an acute impact on the smaller organisations in our network, we topped up this funding to award a further £10,000 in account credits. 

The cost-of-living crisis is having far-reaching effects. Here’s our pick of the resources, tools and guides available to help.