By Tom Cleaver
The ‘No child without a coat’ campaign was launched by the Aglandjia municipality and the Alkinoos Artemiou foundation for the third successive year on Monday.
The foundation said the campaign will see people given the opportunity to donate coats that their children have outgrown to children in need.
To this end, there will be a “specially designed area” outside the Vienna bakery on Kyrenia avenue in Platy Aglandjias where people will be able to donate coats between 9am and 6pm, from Thursday until November 24.
Volunteers will be present at the bakery, with the foundation saying they will be there to “inform the public about the mission”, as well as the wider activities of the Alkinoos Artemiou foundation, which typically aims to help children hospitalised on oncology and haematology wards and their families.
Additionally, they said, the Nicosia municipality is also embracing the effort this year as part of its ‘Recycle and Share’ scheme, with the municipality set to be accepting donations of children’s coats at its three municipal citizens’ service centres between 8am and 3pm, from Thursday until November 22.
At the end of the campaign, people will be able to purchase the coats which were donated, with the remaining coats set to be distributed to families in need.
In 2022, a total of 300 coats were donated to the campaign, and that figure rose to 800 last year.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, Alkinoos Artemiou foundation chairman Artemis Artemiou said his foundation had undertaken the campaign because it had identified a way it could help children in need.
“We saw that we could help people, and children came to us, and they were given coats,” he began.
He said that in 2022, a number of the coats were given via the Catholic church in Nicosia to child refugees who had reached Cyprus, while some were given out through the Home for Children last year.
This year, he said, priority will be given to children in need attending schools in Nicosia, while others may be distributed through other organisations depending on how many coats are donated.
