Retrak

Our Creative Director Ross Cunningham has been super busy recently! Not only working on several exciting Assembly projects (keep your eyes peeled!), but also helping out a charity called Retrak. They're a UK based company that works with street children in Africa to "give them a real alternative to life on the street";

"There are numerous reasons why children live and sleep on the streets such as poverty; family strife; abuse; being orphaned, often as a result of HIV/AIDS; war and famine. Often abused or violated on the street, regarded as barely human and on the very fringe of society, they eke out an existence, begging or scavenging through rubbish for food. Our aim is that these children can realise their full potential and discover their inherent worth.

Retrak began in Kampala, Uganda in 1994 as a football club providing street children with the opportunity for play and, for a short while at least, escape their day to day problems and dangers. Recognising both the need and the potential, Retrak expanded the scope of its work beyond football and, by 1997, had become a UK charity and was registered in Uganda as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) called the Tigers Club Project; later renamed Retrak.
 Programmes were developed by working with the children individually, to find what worked best for them; and grew to include education, vocational training, health care, counselling and more, while keeping the much loved football sessions. The common aim of all of Retrak’s programmes is to work with the children as individuals, with their own individual hopes and circumstances, to enable them to take their place back in the community and, where possible, within their own families.
Retrak has enabled hundreds of children to move off the streets and back into their communities. As well as Uganda, we now also have a centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia which has been hugely successful and we work with partners in Kenya."

A pretty worthy cause I'm sure you'll all agree. So what Ross has done, is to put his design skills to work and he has created a range of t-shirts for the charity. They are trying to increase funds by selling more merchandise and hosting events - something the whole Assembly team may be taking part in, but more details on this to follow!

So if you fancy looking swish and helping some very desrving children out at the same time (or are just in need of a new t-shirt), you don't need to look any further!

Click to visit the Assembly Studios homepage.