Beauty Banks launches The Kids Are Not Alright campaign to tackle hygiene shaming

The founders of Beauty Banks, Jo Jones and Sali Hughes, have launched a campaign and fundraising appeal to tackle ‘hygiene shaming’ amongst children in schools.

The Kids Are Not Alright campaign aims to raise awareness of the issue of hygiene shaming in the UK and encourages donations via its GoFundMe page to help the charity’s mission to ‘end hygiene shaming for good’.

Research conducted by Mortar Research in August of this year found that 44% of teachers have witnessed children being bullied because of hygiene shaming, 39% have witnessed children’s mental health suffer due to hygiene shaming and 38% of teachers have offered pupils hygiene items such as deodorant and toothpaste. As well as this, one in three teachers anticipate a rise in hygiene poverty due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Jo Jones and Sali Hughes explain: “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 like 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.

“We identified the term hygiene shaming, as shame is at the root of modern-day poverty. If you can’t afford to be clean you can be stigmatised, victim-shamed and bullied.”

The charity identifies two main factors behind hygiene shaming:

• Self-shaming – the shame a child feels because they can’t afford to be clean
• Peer-shaming – being shamed and bullied by peers because they can’t afford to be clean

With The Kids Are Not Alright campaign, Beauty Banks hopes to ensure no-one has to suffer the indignity of being unclean by serving those in hygiene poverty with the products they need while lobbying the government for change.

Donate via The Kids Are Not Alright GoFundMe page here.