Member Article

Unique partnership between Cheshire’s Qualkem Brands and Barnardo's delivers for child carers

A unique partnership between Cheshire hygiene specialists Qualkem Brands and Barnardo’s has raised almost £12,500 to support vulnerable children. Qualkem Brands sold their much in demand Covid-busting Electrosan sanitiser, together with face coverings, with a donation from each sale going to Barnardo’s. The funding follows a donation of £11,000 of Electrosan from Qualkem Brands to Barnardo’s, in 2020, to support the safe opening of Barnardo’s shops following the first lockdown. The exclusive deal meant that Qualkem Brands gifted 30 pence from each sale of a 100ml bottle of Electrosan on the Go Skin and Surface Antiviral Spray and £1 for each SafeT Kit to Barnardo’s. The SafeT kit featured Electrosan and two SmileE face-coverings, complete with an inverted rainbow motif, paying homage to the NHS and other key workers.
Ivan Anketell-Clifford, Managing Director of Crewe-based Qualkem Brands, revealed that the project raised £12,477.60 and announced that specific projects for children on the Wirrall will benefit. “The money will be used to support young carers,” said Ivan. “Wirral Young Carers supports children from age 5-to-18 who care for an adult family member. These children have to juggle school with a home life which revolves around support for a parent suffering a mental health issue, physical illness, a disability or drug and alcohol problems. “Barnardo’s help these children to take part in activities and arrange for them to take a break, even offering short holidays. It’s a tough life for these youngsters and we want to support them. I asked Barnardo’s if we could focus on a specific project where we could make a difference and as the Wirral isn’t far from home, I will be visiting along with Rachael, my wife and fellow company director to see how we can continue to help.” Yunus Bham from Barnardo’s said: “Ivan and the Qualkem team have shown great initiative and generosity in their support for Barnardo’s. Once we lift pandemic restrictions, we look forward to welcoming Ivan and Rachael to the project to demonstrate how they are making a difference.” Last year around 300,000 children, young people, parents and carers were supported by Barnardo’s through more than 1,000 services across the UK, such as young carers, care leavers, foster carers and adoptive parents, training and skills or parenting classes. They work to support vulnerable children in the UK and every year they help thousands of families to build a better future. Keen to engender collaboration and give back, Qualkem worked with Kate Slack a consultant from Cempta Charity Solutions. Together, they identified the opportunity to create impact upon the barriers to education faced by vulnerable children in the UK and created a strategy for a charity partnership. Kate’s expertise in partnership working and years of experience in the healthcare sector enabled us to identify and collaborate with the ‘right’ charity partner to achieve our vision of making a difference to vulnerable young people through responsible business practice. “Her structured, highly organised and meticulous attention to detail was instrumental in matching our desire to help vulnerable children across the UK to the right charity - expediting our official partnership with Barnardo’s and allowing us to start donating as early as possible.”
Qualkem Brands, trading as Repclif Chemical Services Ltd, specialises in hygiene products and the Covid-19 pandemic saw a tremendous upturn in production of Electrosan, an alcohol-free, non-hazardous, sanitiser, skin antiseptic, surface disinfectant and deodoriser.
The Crewe company worked tirelessly through the pandemic producing Electrosan for use by companies including blue light emergency services, locally based Network Rail, dentists, vets and the health care sector
Ivan explained: “Over the past 12 months we have developed a state of the art fogging machine that sprays Electrosan, so any building interiors can be sprayed thoroughly with an ultra-dry, fog, PPE free, with no interruption to the working day, and with no staff downtime. We believe Electrosan Sanitation offers the perfect solution for all public services and businesses to protect their people and give confidence to society as we work towards normality post-Covid-19.” It isn’t the first time that Qualkem Brand has supported the charity and the much publicised poorly supported care sector. In spring 2020, Ivan, Rachael and the team personally delivered boxes of Electrosan, worth around £15,000 to the doorsteps of care homes and a children’s hospice.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Nigel Howle .