I have just read an article about a company called Madlug who make rucksacks suitable as School bags.

I know nothing about the bags, quality etc but felt moved to recommend them on here for one reason only: every time you buy one of their bags, they gift a bag to a child in the care system. You can also gift a bag directly for about £10 (there is an option if you follow the main link below.)

Often, children moving between care families move their belongings in black bin bags, as if they are just discarded rubbish. This company aims to change that.

At a time when many parents are looking for school bags, I thought this might be worth a mention!

https://www.madlug.com/collections/backpacks

Great post, KCG! Thank you for sharing the info.

Unfortunately all the backpacks have been sold out for a couple of weeks! I've been waiting for them to come back into stock.

Thanks JaneEyre - it just seems such a good idea I want to shout it from the rooftops!

Loobylou - in a way I’m glad they are sold out as it means word is getting out there - but you can, still just gift a bag to a child in care. Hopefully this initiative will continue and every year when the “school bag” threads start, someone will remember this thread!

Great idea. Thanks for sharing.

On a related subject, I'll shamelessly plug NYAS, the National Youth Advocacy Service. If anyone is interested in a challenging but rewarding volunteer role, they are nearly always looking for people to be independent visitors. Details here:

https://www.nyas.net/services/independent-visitors/

That looks interesting anotherdad ... thanks for posting.

“Often, NYAS volunteers are the only adult in a child’s life who is not paid to spend time with them.”

Succinct and thought-provoking, thanks anotherdad for posting about it. Thanks, kcg, for mentioning the first one and starting the thread.

For those who have time/skills and training, (voluntary) adult literacy tutoring is another good way to help those who weren’t given fair access to the playing field when they were of school age.

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Just to let people know... Most colours of backpack are now back in stock.
Kcg, I agree it's good that they're selling so fast and I know we can just "gift" one but dd actually needed a new backpack too so we were desperately waiting for one of these!
(Once she knew about these, she obviously wanted one of them rather than a different brand. She has a friend who was in care and is fostered very happily now so she saw it as an opportunity to help but also to raise awareness among her peers).

Fab to hear on both counts, loobylou!

Great to raise awareness about initiatives like this - thank you. I was hoping Dd1 would carry on with her bag for another year, but it seems that was optimistic of me. At least I can buy her one from here and do something positive for someone else at the same time.