Home > Talking Pants > Talking Pants – January 2025

Total underwear collected is 2,307,511

Thank you for sending us a pantastic 822 parcels in December.

Since our last Talking Pants, we’ve provided new pants to 3 organisations:

  • 1,266 pairs of pants to The School Bank, West Lothian.
  • 1,029 pairs of pants to NPAC who will be delivering them to a project supporting women and girls in Zambia.
  • 446 pairs of pants to Care4Calais Slough/Heathrow for people seeking asylum in the area.

2024 was a busy year and a ‘good’ year, but with the help of our volunteers and pantastic friends and supporters like you, I want to make 2025 a ‘great’ year. Building on everything we’ve achieved over the last 14 years, I now want to explore the possibility of making pants in Africa. As you may recall, the wonderful BERFRED Foundation has supported Smalls for the last 3 years – it’s thanks to them we have – amongst other things – a weatherproof courier shed, patio heaters for the warehouse and an upgraded website with buy-to-give functionality. During the summer, we submitted a proposal to them for funds to help set up a small pant-making pilot in Africa, and were delighted when they granted us the money. The plan is to test out, on a small scale, making pants in Lilongwe, Malawi. I’m now speaking with local people and getting quotes for making the pants to give to people in need in the area – specifically, girls at a local high school and women in the city’s Freedom for Fistula hospital.

To the obvious question, why? Well, we’re sometimes asked whether donating underwear from the UK is having an adverse effect on local clothing industries in Africa. As you know, the underwear we donate is in response to requests from organisations who support poorer or more remote communities. Which means it goes to people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to underwear or be able to afford it regardless of where it was made. But it’s an important consideration, and I’d love to be able to support underwear manufacturing in Africa. It’s been a few years since I was last there, but at that time the only pants I could find were poor quality imports or second-hand pants sold in markets. The feedback we get is that this is still largely the case. The underwear they get from Smalls is of a much better quality than the imports that can be bought in Africa in terms of standard of material and construction. With this in mind, I want to test the feasibility of working with a small clothing manufacturer in Malawi to make quality pants for local people in need. This would remove some of the logistics around getting pants to the people who need them with the added benefit of creating work for local people. We will have to assess how the pilot’s gone and, if it’s worked well, we’ll look to scale it up or extend it to other communities. And of course, figure out how we would fund it. We’re at the very early stages but will of course keep you all up to date with progress.

Starting the new year with a clear-out? Give your old ink cartridges a second life with Recycle4Charity! Simply choose ‘Smalls for All’ as your charity, and they’ll transform your cartridges into something amazing – refilled for reuse or recycled into plastic ‘wood’ beams. Each cartridge can earn up to £2 for Smalls AND reduces landfill waste. £365.15 has been raised in the last 12 months which is pantastic!

As always, thank you for supporting Smalls.
Maria