CHOOSE LOVE // Print Club x Help Refugees
Josie, founder of Help Refugees. Katharine Hamnett. Kate Higginson, founder of Print Club London. Choose Love exhibition 2018
Print Club London x Help Refugees
Over the past four years Print Club London have been collaborating with emerging and established artists on the Choose Love collection. Through the sales of the exclusive prints and fundraising exhibitions we raise money in support of the charity Help Refugees. The project launched with an exhibition at Somerset House on World Refugee Day in 2018 and the collection has grown since, travelling to Pikes Ibiza, a second show at Somerset House and producing sell out prints for Help Refugees Choose Love pop up store.
Pikes Ibiza x Silken Favors Choose Love – £30
From print making to collage and photography each artwork in the collection is completely unique in its design and available to buy from our gallery with all proceeds going directly to support the charity. Artists to date who have worked on the project include Stanely Donwood, Quentin Jones, Morag Mysercough, Noel Fielding and Anish Kapoor. The exclusive artworks are on sale via our website and we hope you will join us and Choose Love!
Watch the video below to find out more about our project.
Video by Adrian-Florin Ardelean
Alex May Hughes. Choose Love exhibition 2019
Since the launch Print Club London have raised over £150,000 for the charity Help Refugees to date.* This couldn’t have been possible without the generosity of our artists using their talent to produce pieces of art for our gallery and our customers who invested in the beautiful art and the cause! Here’s where your money has gone and how much of a positive impact it has had!
*Amount raised as of Oct 2020
£5,000 has gone towards diapers for Lesvos.
There are 8000 refugees currently living in Moria camp – which was designed for 1500 people. Help Refugees fund many of the services and support available to people living in there and the diaper programme is a big one as there are almost a thousand babies in the camp.
£8,000 has gone towards Refugees4Refugees on Samos
Refugee4Refugees have done incredible work and equipped thousands of people with non-food items over the past months in their distribution centre. Meanwhile all women and children have access to non food items, which consist mainly of clothes, hygiene-items and sleeping bags. In March and April, our partner organised NFI distributions for all male residents of the camp using a ticketing system. Furthermore prams were distributed for babies in their free shop and provided to different projects around the island. New arrivals get 2 sets of everything including a hygiene package, shoes and a jacket. The organisation is still only sustainable actor on the island that provides NFIs in large quantities.
People reached: 4,000
£8,000 has gone towards Medical care on Samos.
Due to overcrowding on the island, the hospital and the doctor in the camp are overwhelmed. Therefore Help Refugees’ partner Med’equaliteam offer additional medical care. Their clinic is visited daily by 70 – 100 patients and is open 6 days a week. The clinic collaborates with and makes referrals to the hospital. Furthermore, they run medical workshops in the community centres on a weekly basis.
People reached: 600
Dave Buonaguidi. Choose Love Exhibition 2019.
£12,000 has gone towards supporting community and educational needs. We have supported centres including the Orange House offer language classes and vocational courses for displaced people, as well as psychosocial and legal services.
£11,500 has gone towards dry foods and nutritional provisions. Our money supports partners such as InterEuropean Human Aid Association which provides meals for communities in Northern Greece. We’ve also funded food baskets to Pikpa, and independent community living in Lesvos so they can cook communal meals with their kitchens.
Additional food is provided at the following projects:
We are One‘s safe space for women and babies: The team offers fruit, eggs, fresh salads and drinks for all the participants. Babies under 2 years receive bananas and other snacks. Pregnant women get some extra food, such as nuts. Each Monday, on the ‘pregnant women only’ day, a warm, nutritious meal and a fresh salad is served that is explicitly aimed at the needs of pregnant women.
Mazi Youth Centre run by Still I Rise: Breakfast and lunch is given daily as well as dinner once a week for all the students (unaccompanied children).
Baobab Community Centre for Families: Light meals are cooked on site and available in the centre. In the last weeks they were preparing up to 250 – 300 meals a day. There is hot tea and water to drink.
Action for Education‘s Banana House: One hot and fresh meal is provided for each of the participants daily. Every month they serve around 2500 meals.
Thanks to your support, together with our partners we are currently looking into options to start providing supplementary food for babies from 6 months – 24 months.
People reached: 1,000
£3000 has gone towards the monthly running costs of Say it Loud Club in London, a team of staff and volunteers that support LGBTQIA+ refugees and asylum seekers. The Say It Loud community provides a valuable support system for LGBTQIA+ refugees as they gain the right to live freely in the UK.
£10,000 has gone towards a grant to SOS MEDITERRANEE so they can resume live saving search and rescue missions in the central Mediterranean Sea. Since March 2016 their team has rescued 31,618 children, women and men.
We want to thank everyone that has supported this project so far. If you would like any more information about how your money has been spent do get in touch with lizzi@printclublondon.com
Choose Love Exhibition. Somerset House 2018
Choose Love Exhibition. 2019
A massive thank you to all our supporters, artists and of course Katharine Hamnett and the Help Refugees team.
