Monday 28 February 2022

A 45-strong team of Essex police officers, staff and volunteers will be scaling Mount Snowdon in May to raise money for Embrace Child Victims of Crime.

The Essex Police fundraising team organised the climb of Wales’ highest mountain to raise £20,000 for Embrace CVoC which supports children and young people who have been affected by serious crime.

The funds raised by the climb, which is taking place on 14 May 2022, will pay for a trip to Disney-land, Paris for a group of children who have suffered terrible trauma because of crimes such as domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and homicide.

Community beat officers and staff and officers from the domestic violence and child sexual exploitation teams, have already raised £11,000 in sponsorship.

DC Vicky De’ath, one of the officers organising the challenge, said: “My colleague Mandy Moxon has been raising money for Embrace for years through bake sales and other initiatives and when I heard about how the charity supports children who have been through such terrible experiences I wanted to get involved.

“We decided we wanted to fund a Disney trip for a group of children and so we have set ourselves the target of raising £20,000. We’ve already raised over £11,000 and we are looking forward to fi-nally getting to do the challenge in May.”

Chief Executive of Embrace Child Victims of Crime Anne Campbell said: “I’d like to thank Essex Police colleagues, their friends and families and everyone taking part for choosing to support Em-brace.

“Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on families and last year we saw a four-fold increase in the number of children referred to us suffering trauma from domestic abuse. This climb will pay for a trip of a lifetime for some of the children we support across Essex.”

Embrace CVOC is the only charity in the UK which dedicates all its time to working with children who have been harmed by serious crime.

Since 1993 it has helped many thousands of children across the UK who have suffered trauma be-cause of sexual abuse, domestic abuse or neglect, or who are grieving the loss of a close family member to homicide.

The charity offers emotional support and specialist counselling, as well as practical support for low income families with clothing and food vouchers, tablets and phones, books, toys and other essen-tials. Working with partners, Embrace CVOC also provides days out and short breaks to help the children and their families make new happier memories.

The Snowdon Challenge is just one of many different fundraising events to support Embrace CVOC’s vital work to help children and young people harmed by crime across the UK. To find out more visit embracecvoc.org.uk/events.

To find out more about Embrace CVOC visit www.embracecvoc.org.uk. If you have any questions about Embrace CVOC you can email support@embracecvoc.org.uk or call 0345 60 999 60.

To support the Embrace Snowdon team visit https://www.justgiving.com/team/embracesnowdon