campaign | Belle 365

It’s hard to sleep when the streetlight’s shining into your bedroom through a chink in the curtain, or when the temperature’s just a touch on the cold side but you can’t be bothered to get out of your nice cosy bed and crank the heating up.

Imagine, for a moment, that the streetlight isn’t shining through the curtain but directly on your face. You’re cold because you have no duvet and are instead huddled beneath thin sheets of newspaper. And your ‘bed’ is a bench or – worse than that – the hard ground. Oh – and did I mention that you’re five years old and all alone?

Around the world there are countless children who call the streets their home. The International Day for Street Children is celebrated every year on April 12^th (that’s today, by the way). It provides a platform for millions of street children around the world – and their champions – to speak out so that their rights cannot be ignored.

However, the day is currently not owned by any one organisation. Which is why this year the Consortium for Street Children – the leading international network dedicated to realising the rights of street children worldwide – is calling for the United Nations to adopt and recognise the day as UN day. When the United Nations adopts a day it gives the issue greater global exposure and increases pressure on governments to act.

To show your support for street children please sign this petition or alternatively text STREET and your name to 62233 (UK only, standard network rates apply.) You can also visit the website and download pictures to put up on your social media networks for the day.

Help a street child today – because if fate had played its cards differently it could just as easily have been you.

This afternoon I did a presentation to a group of volunteer fundraisers about ‘Don’t wait until you’re certain,’ the campaign I helped to manage to promote the organisation’s adult helpline service. The first burst of the campaign was handed to me to manage by my outgoing manager three months after I joined the charity, in March last year. To say it was a stressful experience to devise and execute a PR plan for a national media campaign in under a month would be an understatement, but when the launch turned out to be a huge success and contacts to the charity about serious cases of child abuse increased by 16% I was delighted that the blood, sweat and tears had paid off.

Fast forward ten months to January this year and it was time to do it all over again. With a bigger budget to play with we were able to pay for TV advertising as well as digital, which gave a much bigger reach. As before my role was to manage the PR for the campaign, which included the development of a content plan across the charity’s website and social media channels to drive engagement with the campaign messaging. I even wrote my first film script – for a message of support recorded by the rather lovely actor, Dominic West (though sadly I didn’t get to meet him in person).

This time around, with the benefit of TV advertising and a sponsored trend on Twitter, we’ve seen a 46% increase in referrals to the helpline – an uplift that has stayed constant for the duration of the campaign. Social media engagement has also been through the roof as a result of the campaign, which has been exciting to see.

In truth it choked me up delivering a presentation on something that I’ve been so close to for the past year but which I will soon have to walk away from. Yet despite my impending redundancy, this campaign is something I will always feel enormously proud to have been involved with. I know that wherever I go next I will always feel a glow of satisfaction that its success was in no small part down to my contribution.

Belle 365

"Life isn't all about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain."

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Plea for street children