Mother-of-two Annie Spilsbury has launched a campaign to collect shoes for children in Uganda after seeing a picture of an orphaned toddler wearing her daughter’s first shoes.

Miss Spilsbury, 41, of Studley, is asking local mums to donate their children’s second-hand shoes and has persuaded American shoe company Pediped to match the number of shoes she receives.

She decided to donate her daughter Amber’s shoes after speaking to charity founder Miriam Sawyer, who set up the Butale Project to support children at Grace Primary School in Butale.

Mrs Sawyer, of London Road, Calne, took Amber’s shoes to Uganda in July and gave them to a toddler named Dorcas who had been abandoned by her mother.

Miss Spilsbury, who is mum to 18-month-old Amber and two-year-old Ashley, said she had donated 20 pairs of shoes in total, but had found it hard to part with her daughter’s first pair.

She said: “I sat in the bedroom saying ‘do I, don’t I?’ and then I thought ‘do you know what, these are going to help someone’. When Amber is older she will have the photo in her keepsake box instead.

“When Miriam sent me a photo of an orphan wearing Amber’s shoes it broke my heart, and when she came back she said they didn’t have enough shoes to go round.

“If you look on eBay there’s no market for second-hand children’s shoes because we’re all brought up not to buy second-hand. There’s a lot of shoes that we just don’t know what to do with.”

In Uganda shoes are needed to protect children from chigoe fleas, or jiggers, which are able to burrow into bare feet and cause infection if they are left untreated.

Miss Spilsbury plans to provide every mum with a picture of the child who receives their shoes and has already received an initial donation of 500 pairs from Pediped.

She said: “I thought that every child deserves shoes and I don’t know why any manufacturer would have any issue with doing a charity match.

“These things are straight forward to put together and they make a big difference. I think we’re actually going to get thousands and thousands of shoes.”

Shoes can be posted to 130 London Road, Calne, SN11 0AH. People can get a picture of their child’s shoes with their new owner by writing their name and putting £1 in the shoes.

Email thebutaleproject@hotmail. co.uk or call 07952 565269. For more about the project, visit www.the butaleproject.wix.com/butale-project