BRING your bras to the movies and give a charity a boost, is the latest message from a cinema. The Lexi Cinema in Chamberlayne Road, Kensal Rise, is asking its customers to bring their unwanted bras along to screenings, which they will donate to teenage

BRING your bras to the movies and give a charity a boost, is the latest message from a cinema.

The Lexi Cinema in Chamberlayne Road, Kensal Rise, is asking its customers to bring their unwanted bras along to screenings, which they will donate to teenage girls and women living in Lynedoch Village near Cape Town, South Africa.

The campaign was launched by Lexi founder Sally Wilton, with support from Park Life, a blog listing what's going on in Kensal Rise and Queen's Park, after she visited the village and realised that females living there could use some extra support.

More than 250 bras have already been collected.

She said: "The girls were taking part in a dance workshop and put on a display for us. They were brilliant, but the dominant thought in the minds of all of us visiting women was: 'Those girls need their first bras.'

"In a part of the world where women are not always particularly valued, bras are an expensive luxury and nobody's priority, yet they provide the girls with dignity, privacy, and help to build confidence.

"So, all you women and girls please bring us your bras!"

The Lexi was launched as a 'boutique social enterprise cinema' in 2008, donating 100 per cent of its profits to charity project The Sustainability Institute, which aims to improve the quality of life for the Lynedoch Village community.

Profits from the cinema's film screenings, live opera and theatre broadcasts, snacks and bar sales, private parties and corporate events, have already contributed to building a creche, tuition fees, schoolbags, tracksuits, school meals, after school clubs, sustainable gardens and solar panels, waste treatment and water management initiatives.

To donate unwanted bras hand them in to the box office before any screening.

See www.thelexicinema.co.uk for more details.

Visit www.sustainabilityinstitute.net for more information about the Sustainability Institute.

sofia.mitra-thakur@archant.co.uk