With the UK schools re-opening, our affiliate Beauty Banks has partnered with Superdrug and GoFundMe to launch their Back to Schools campaign to raise awareness of hygiene shaming.
Hygiene shaming is the phenomenon where children living in poverty are singled out, bullied or teased for their lack of access to essential toiletries and adequate hygiene facilities.
Jo Jones, co-founder of Beauty Banks said, “We identified the term HYGIENE SHAMING as shame is at the root of modern-day poverty. The pandemic has shone a light on this issue, with the focus on cleanliness and hygiene dramatically intensified. Now more than ever, if you can’t afford to be clean you can be stigmatized, victim-shamed and bullied and that stigma, that shame is internalized, and you shame and blame yourself. It’s a catastrophic barrier to learning.”
Beauty Banks are helping schools and their pupils become involved in helping others through their Kids-4-Kids programme, by collecting toiletries and learning about the effects of hygiene shame on their classmates. They will also continue to distribute essential toiletries to schools across England, Scotland and Wales so teachers can discreetly provide pupils with what they need, allowing these kids can get on with learning.
Since the beginning of Covid-19, the demand for their support has sky-rocketed. The impact of the pandemic is pushing more families into poverty, meaning more children are suffering the indignity of being unclean.
To support this campaign, they ran a survey of 250 working secondary school teachers in the UK, via independent research company, Mortar Research and were appalled to learn that:
- 44% of teachers have witnessed children being bullied bully because of hygiene shaming
- 39% have seen children’s mental health suffer due to hygiene shaming
- 38% of teachers have offered pupils hygiene items like deodorant and toothpaste
- 1-in-3 teachers anticipate a rise in hygiene poverty due to the coronavirus pandemic
This campaign has been months in the making because the charity takes working with children and schools incredibly seriously. Beauty Banks have been supporting schools with hygiene and personal care donations since they started in February 2018.
Sali Hughes, co-founder of Beauty Banks, comments, “Shame makes children and adolescents feel small, humiliated and bad about themselves. The effects of shame are connected to depression and anxiety disorders – all of which make learning harder and friendships more challenging. These matter hugely in a child’s life and consequently, in a teacher’s. We cannot in any good conscience allow children to feel life-limiting shame over a lack of deodorant, toothpaste and soap. We need to help teachers to give kids the hygiene essentials they need to thrive.”
If you would like to get involved and help teachers to give kids the hygiene essentials they need to thrive, please donate or share the following GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/endhygieneshaming.
You can also keep up to date on the campaign and everything that Beauty Banks do via their website, Instagram and Facebook pages.
