Partner Article

New life for old uniforms

Hundreds of Newcastle Building Society uniforms will be getting a new lease of life after being sent to Africa to help communities in need.

Working with international charity World Emergency Relief, the building society has sent hundreds of shirts, skirts, blouses, trousers and jackets to towns and villages in Burundi, Central East Africa.

Around 350 uniforms that were shipped out to Burundi in September are expected to arrive this month. These will form part of a shipment that included food, blankets, soap, medical aid to make up a rounded aid donation.

World Emergency Relief works with companies across the UK to send equipment and supplies to more than 20 countries, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa, and works with partners on the ground to ensure that the goods are distributed to the people, projects and communities that need them most.

Gillian Tiplady, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Newcastle Building Society, said: “We recently updated our staff uniform design and were left with all the previous uniforms which couldn’t be used here anymore - we didn’t want to just throw them away, so we looked into how best they might be used elsewhere and were very pleased to discover the projects run by World Emergency Relief.

“The people in Burundi are so poor that those clothes they do have are in a ragged state. It is not uncommon for people to have only one set of clothes for work and one for home, so sending a spare shirt, t-shirt, pair of trousers or jacket really makes a difference.

“We take our CSR activities very seriously, and it’s great for us to know that we’ve been able to help communities many thousands of miles away through donating uniforms that wouldn’t have had any further use in this country.”

For more information on World Emergency Relief, please visit www.wer-uk.org.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .