Furniture retailer IKEA is conducting its annual Soft Toys for Education Campaign until 19th December from which proceeds from the sale of soft toys will go towards helping fund educational projects all over the world run by Save the Children or UNICEF. Thousands of people entered a competition to have the once in a lifetime opportunity to have their doodles recreated as a limited edition toy which will be sold globally. Ten winners were picked one of whom was Olivia Wildman from Essex who drew a fluffy skunk called Stinky. Stinky joins a wide selection of other toys including a scary dinosaur and tiger amongst others.
More than 80 toys to choose from
The campaign IKEA is running is very simple, for every soft toy, and other children’s item such as books, card games or dressing up clothes sold up to 19th December 2015, the company will donate €1 to support educational programmes operated by UNICEF and Save the Children around the world. There are over 80 toys to choose from and prices start from as low as £1 which means it couldn’t be any easier to help out a child this winter.
The money raised does a lot of good
This year the campaign is hoping to raise €700,000 in the UK and Ireland to add to a combined €77 million that has been raised since the campaign began in 2003. The money raised so far has benefited over 11 million children through 99 projects in 46 different countries. €100,000 is enough to enable Save the Children to provide 35 schools in the Philippines for kids with disabilities gain access to quality and accessible education. With the same amount of money, UNICEF would be able to construct four fully equipped pre-schools in Madagascar which have access to clean water and toilet facilities.
