Luisa Zissman has begged her fans to donate just £1 each to an orphanage after she was forced to defend her own millionaire status.
The former Apprentice star teamed up with Sam Faiers to launch to Outreach Moldova charity in 2019, and the duo have been working tirelessly to raise essential funds to help pay for nannies and carers at the orphanage.
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, they’ve not been able to hold any fundraising events, so Luisa took to social media to plead with her followers to donate what they can to help the disabled girls in the orphanage.
In an appeal to her followers, Luisa took to her Instagram Stories to share videos from her trip to the orphanage, and asked them to donate to “employ more nannies”.
“We urgently need to fundraise to employ more nannies who look after the girls 24hrs a day in shift patterns,” Luisa wrote atop a video of her helping a young girl in a cot, as she revealed the nannies are currently paid just over one euro an hour.
The former reality star then held a Q&A, and was asked if the children in the orphanage are abandoned because of their disabilities.
“In a nutshell, yes. Most are disabled during birth because of bad maternal care, one little girl was ‘perfect’ until age 7 when she caught meningitis and became disabled. Her family then abandoned her. Can you actually imagine doing that? Just totally unbelievable,” Luisa replied.
She then showed her followers how to set up a monthly donation to the charity, after one follower said she wished she “had more to give”.
Luisa insisted that “all the money” goes to the children's’ care, and “every employee is there to look after children”.
“We have no admin staff, no fundraising staff, no big wages. Everything you donate goes to these children,” she explained.
However, one disgruntled follower asked why Luisa and her husband Andrew Collins couldn’t just give “a million pounds” to the charity because they were “millionaires”.
“I get asked this a lot and normally don’t answer because it just seems a bit crass,” she replied, as she said she’s recently given more than £18,000 to the charity in less than two weeks.
“We have given more than a million over the years, the only reason why these children are still alive is because of the money we donate & continue to donate.
“It’s not sustainable for one family to do this. We could lose everything tomorrow,” Luisa candidly shared.
“Just because I don’t shout on here every time we make a transfer doesn’t mean it’s not happening,” she stated.
Luisa then revealed that if her and Sam’s followers donated just £1 it would keep the charity going “for 10 years”.
“People power is an expression for a reason,” she added.
Later, she shared more details of the running costs of the orphanage in Moldova, and said it’s expensive due to the palliative care needs of some children.
“The kids have such complex needs they need 1:1 care at a minimum, 24 hours a day… All these people need paying to look after them,” she wrote.
Luisa revealed the money she and Sam raised in 2019 has kept the charity going throughout the Covid pandemic, and the money her family “donated” has meant it can survive through 2021, but the charity has had to make cutbacks.
And when asked if Sam’s connections with ITV could help get the charity some much-needed coverage, Luisa said “people don’t like to see sick, dying children in desperate need”.
“TV is a sh***y, fickle world. Sad but true. I even have close friends who don’t acknowledge or donate, which upsets me greatly,” she revealed.
