What a fickle mistress technology is. How quickly the ‘latest model’ passes out of fashion before being cruelly dumped in the messy drawer.
I tracked down three discarded mobile phones from yesteryear in my house this morning. Two in the aforementioned messy drawer; the third in the younger Miss P’s wardrobe, where it was stuffed into one of the vast collection of little handbags she keeps as props for ‘pretending to be a grown-up’ role play. (I also found several dozen other missing items including my driving licence, the spare car key, my husband’s iPod nano, and £75 in small change.)
It’s not just me you know: an estimated 15 million unused mobiles are knocking around in the UK right now. Whether we all hang on to them on the off-chance that we will tire of our newer, cleverer versions and start hankering for a time when phones were clunkier and life was simpler, or whether we just can’t be arsed to clear out the messy drawer, I couldn’t say.
Anyhoo, the (ultimately rather more important) point I’m making here is that all these defunct handsets can actually be put to pretty good use. That’s because my good friends at Netmums have joined forces with a fantastic charity called Kids Company to launch a major campaign which aims to make money for needy kids. In order to make this money, they’re asking as many people as possible to rummage around in their drawers – as it were – in order to locate some of those 15 million phones, and donate them so they can be recycled for cash.They’re calling the campaign Mobiles For Meals.
Kids Company, founded and headed up by the awesome Camila Batmanghelidjh, gives help to vulnerable inner city children who, for various reasons, don’t get the practical and emotional support they need. Most of these kids self refer themselves – in other words, they’re so desperate they walk in and ask for help of their own accord. Because of this there’s no local authority funding for them, and it’s why Kids Company rely on charitable donations from those of us with luckier lives.
So please take a look! If you hit paydirt, like I did this morning, all you’ve got to do is pop your findings in to your nearest T-Mobile or Orange shop. Or, easier still, stick ‘em in a jiffy bag and bung ‘em in the post: it won’t cost, because there’s a pre-paid postage label available on Netmums. Download it and read more about the campaign, here.
Go on then. Happy rummaging.
Send ‘em here
