Curly Wigs For Kids
AND
LITTLE PRINCESS TRUST
(CLICK TO READ)
Curly Wigs for Kids is the UK’s first curly/kinky hair non-profit dedicated to providing free human hair wigs to children suffering from hair loss. We cater to everyone but are particularly pleased to be the first to provide this service to people who wish to donate 4a, 4b or 4c hair!
New wig
Before Haircut
After Haircut- Hair has been turned into a wig ready to be donated!
About Us
4 years ago I cut my son’s beautiful long curly afro hair with the intention to donate it to a charity that makes wigs for people who have lost their hair for medical reasons. To my surprise, no where would accept it. Every organisation wanted only straight/Caucasian or Asian hair to turn into wigs.
Fast foward 3 years on, my son was due a haircut and the story was the same.
This didn’t make sense to me. Surely hair loss and illness is no respecter of race or hair type. It didn’t seem right to me that children who had lost their natural curly or kinky hair didn’t have the same options others did. So I started researching. And after considerable trial and error, I found a way to turn my son’s hair into a wig for another child.
Pleased at not having to waste his beautiful hair, I started thinking of how we could help others who need hair. And so Curly Wigs For Kids was born mid 2020.
We accept curly hair and kinky hair and turn them into wigs for children who have lost hair due to cancer, alopecia, trichotillomania, burns or other medical reasons.
Thank you for your help.
C
CURLY WIGS FOR KIDS & LITTLE PRINCESS TRUST 09/02/21
Four years ago I took part as one of the experts in BBC2s Historical series The Sweetmakers. What followed was an unexpected crash course in the dirty history of sugar, slavery and ultimately racism as the world still knows it. For even though I am black and raised in Nigeria till I was 21, I was largely uninformed.
And as time went on, I became increasingly aware of my unintended complicity in allowing things to remain as they were. I started learning not to shrug and leaving things be.
So when I discovered that charities would not accept my son’s hair because of his ethnicity, I decided to do something.
Charities, such as The Little Princess Trust, said they were unable to find a wig manufacturer that could turn Afro hair into a real hair wig.
But those responses would do little to ease the feelings of children like my son so I decided to turn his cut hair into a wig myself with a sewing machine and with the help of a wigmaker.
I set up this non-profit and website, determined to provide an avenue for children of all races – and especially those with Afro hair – to donate and receive human hair wigs.
A few months ago a BBC newsround journalist contacted me because they were speaking to a child with Afro hair who was desperate to donate their hair and hadn’t been successful with The Little Princess Trust. They got in touch to see if the child could donate the hair via Curly Wigs for Kids. They relayed this to The Little Princess Trust, too, and this sparked a three-way conversation.
This journalist became instrumental in introducing me to Phil Brace, the relatively new CEO of The Little Princess Trust. Phil was keen to discover how I made the Afro hair wigs I was making.
In full credit to Phil, he persisted in getting in touch, despite the challenges posed by my filming schedules and time difference whilst I was in Canada, and we had long conversations on the technicalities.
We discussed the difficulties The Little Princess had experienced in the past when they had approached many wig manufacturers and been told they were unable to make wigs with donated Afro hair and we agreed that perhaps Afro hair required a different processing technique to Caucasian hair.
Phil assured me that one of the things he was keen to achieve since taking leadership at The Little Princess Trust was to make the charity more inclusive.
And, true to his word, he soon told me the amazing news that The Little Princess Trust was to start working with Afro hair in trials with a well-respected wig manufacturer.
Upon hearing this, I have decided to signpost all Afro hair enquiries from Curly Wigs for Kids to The Little Princess Trust. Hair is not my main business and I am glad to handover all Afro hair donations and enquiries to the capable hands of The Little Princess Trust.
To mark this huge step in inclusivity, I was pleased to be asked to become a Celebrity Ambassador with The Little Princess Trust – a position I have gladly accepted.
I believe progress is working together to change things one step at a time. Teams are redefined not based on the colour of the skin, but on the choices we make to make the world fairer and more equal. There is no them, or us, there’s only progress, or lack thereof. With large organisations, all it takes is one person determined to ask questions and make a difference.
Phil Brace said he was delighted that Cynthia had become an ambassador with The Little Princess Trust.
“Finding a way to use Afro hair donations in our wigs has long been an ambition of our charity and it has been brilliant to speak to Cynthia and tap into her knowledge and expertise,” he said.
“While we have always provided Afro-style wigs, we recognised that we could never be fully inclusive if we could not accept Afro hair donations.
“We are therefore delighted to have worked with Cynthia and, thanks to her efforts with Wigs for Kids, we are now in a position to do this.
“It really is a very exciting time and, by working together, we really feel like we can make a huge difference.”