Lepra - Fighting Leprosy.

Thank you for your support. Together we will beat leprosy.                View this email in your browser

Dear  Friends, Giving 'Shoesday' is back!! This year for Giving Tuesday, Lepra are once again holding our fabled celebrity shoe auction. With footwear donated from some familiar faces and household names such as Dame Judi Dench, Rory McIlroy, Hannah Cockroft MBE, Virat Kohli, Sir Tony Robinson and more!   Giving Tuesday is a uniquely special day for Lepra. It is a day where everyone, everywhere can do something to support the good causes that mean so much to them. It is a truly global event and is celebrated on the Tuesday following the well-known shopping days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year, Giving Tuesday falls on 29 November. For Lepra, Giving Tuesday has become our Giving 'Shoesday’! An annual celebration of everything that shoes and footwear represent, for people with leprosy and lymphatic filariasis (LF). Our auction this year will be held on ebay from 25th November to 4th December, more details to follow shortly! Visit our webpage and sign up for regular updates, so that you can be the first to hear all the details on when you can start bidding, and whose shoes you may be able to win! Click to watch a very special Giving 'Shoesday’ video message from the amazing Dame Joanna Lumley OBE. Why Shoes? Lepra have a long history of providing protective footwear, stretching back to the 1960s. The nerve damage caused by leprosy leaves people vulnerable to burns, cuts, ulcers and injuries that can potentially lead to severe damage to fingers, toes, hands and feet. For decades, protective footwear has played a vital role in the prevention of permanent disability. More recently, footwear has also taken on an important symbolic value, which extends far beyond it’s physiological and protective benefits. It has come to represent the very rights, hopes and expectations we all share as human-beings. Footwear has become a symbol of dignity, a symbol of independence and a symbol of freedom. Lepra’s protective footwear help people to retain their employment and livelihood, they help to access education, healthcare and to maintain family life and friendships. They allow people to lead a life without the fear of prejudice and discrimination which still surrounds a diagnosis. Costing only £6 to produce, Lepra’s protective footwear are custom-made at our referral centres and mobile footwear units by our specialist technicians, from a special material called multicellular rubber (MCR). Our modern footwear are indistinguishable from other shoes and sandals, with the wearer given the choice of different styles and colours. Choice is important. It is an crucial step in giving someone back control of their lives, at a time where so many are living in fear of their diagnosis and what the future may hold.  A donation of just £6 can provide a person affected by leprosy, a pair of these amazing, life-changing shoes! Donate £6 to buy a pair of life-changing shoes today! Launching on Giving Tuesday, and with support from wonderful and committed donors who have pledged donations to our matched funding pot, we are once again running our ‘£1 from you, we get two’ appeal! How does the “£1 from you, we get two!” appeal work? From Tuesday 29 November 2022 through to midnight on 31 March 2023, we can match the first *£45,000 donated to Lepra. Donations can be given to Lepra in person, over the telephone, online, by cheque, or postal order. This means, if you donate £6 for a pair of specialist protective footwear, your donation will actually provide two pairs! For a chance to double your gift, all you need to do is ensure your donation reaches us within the given timeframe, and if it is within the first £45,000 your donation will be matched!   We can also claim Gift Aid on your donation, so if you are a UK taxpayer, for every £1 you donate we can claim an extra 25p. *Our funding pot will continue to grow, to see our current pot size, please visit our webpage here.