The London Evening Standard has set up a £1m fundraising drive to fight poverty in the capital.

It has launched the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund this week as part of a campaign to target inequalities in the city, which it started four months ago.

The daily paper says almost half of children in London live below the poverty line and it wants to champion the cause of these ‘dispossessed’ families.

It hopes to raise £1m from readers, which the government has agreed to more than double under its Grassroots Grants programme, and the funds will be distributed to local charities.

In a front page editorial, editor Geordie Grieg said: “We want every Londoner to join our fundraising campaign to fight the inequality that blights our city.

“Four months ago we exposed the plight of the capital’s poorest – the people who fight a daily battle just to survive.

“Prince William described our campaign as a ‘call to arms’. Now we are taking up his challenge by doing something concrete to tackle this desperate problem.

“We are setting up a permanent Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund, to help Londoners out of poverty with life-changing support and advice.”

The paper has set up a website to raise funds, which are being collected by the Community Foundation Network for distribution to its partner charities, targeting education, crime, health and unemployment.

Comments

Hilary (22/07/2010 11:26:04)
Is it me – or is this the first time that HTFP has carried a story about the Evening Standard? The paper always used to regard itself as a national. If it has finally found the humility to admit its true function – as London’s regional daily – then hooray for Lebedev (and Grieg). Come to think of it, in the old days the paper would merely have wanted London’s dispossessed poor swept into the Thames. So maybe the KGB teaches its recruits some proper ethics, after all…

Paul Linford, Editor (22/07/2010 11:29:38)
Hilary, it is not in fact the first time HTFP has carried a story about the Evening Standard. If you click on the link in the first paragraph you will see that we have carried more than 30 since our launch ten years ago. But it is certainly the case that from now on we will be treating the Standard as a regional daily, in line with Lebedev’s own recent decision to be treated as a regional paper for the purposes of the ABC figures.

Steve (22/07/2010 13:14:57)
ABC, easy as doh ray mee – when it’s FREE

Derek (27/07/2010 11:20:58)
The Standard is an awful paper. Truly, truly awful.