Words by Smiley Team
We share positive stories every day about local heroes, organisations, as well as businesses changing the world for good.
But every Friday, we also do a round-up of other good news stories that we’ve seen – from studies around happiness, to companies giving back. Grab a cuppa – here’s this week’s round-up.
In a long overdue move, Switzerland has voted to allow same-sex couples to marry in a referendum. It brings the nation in line with most others in western Europe, and the vote passed with 64.1% of voters in favour.
“It is a historic day for Switzerland, a historic day when it comes to equality for same-sex couples, and it is also an important day for the whole LGBT community,” said Jan Muller – who voted in favour.
Peter Duncan is running the London Marathon on 3 October to raise funds for Clothing Collective – a UK homelessness organisation providing vouchers, redeemable in charity shops, for everyday clothing for individuals and families in need.
“I’ve always been conscious working in the West End of lots of people on the streets sleeping rough,” he told the charity. “I thought there’s a little bit of dignity about going somewhere with a voucher and choosing the clothes you want to wear.”
Support Peter running the marathon on his Virgin Money Giving page here.
Almost £15 million of funding will be pumped into the Northern Forest in the next year with just over one million new trees (at least 670 hectares) established.
The ambitious project, which aims to link trees across the M62 corridor from Liverpool to Hull, was launched in 2018 and already 3 million trees have been planted. This has been made possible with funding from the government’s £640 million Nature for Climate fund. £6 million will go directly to the Northern Forest to support the Woodland Trust’s Grow Back Greener programme, while £8.8 million will go to Community Forests within the Northern Forest area through the Trees for Climate programme announced recently.
Around 50 million volunteers in 180 countries picked up litter on World Clean-up Day. It was one of the largest coordinated clean-up efforts in the world – in 2020, World Cleanup Day on 19 September 2020 united more than 11 million people in 166 countries.
Volunteers and partners worldwide come together to rid our planet of trash – cleaning up litter and mismanaged waste from our beaches, rivers, forests, and streets. The day harnesses the power of people around the world to achieve incredible things by joining together.
In Romania – as part of a campaign with local animal shelters and the Professional Football League – footballers supported the shelters by holding up dogs that were up for adoption at the start of their games.
All the dogs are given names tags and scarves that are distinctive, so people can then go on the shelter’s website and find them easily. They’re said to continue doing this for the whole season and so far, 11 animals have been adopted.
