Philip Dunne today called on his constituents to donate spare or unwanted shoes for the 45th Blue Peter annual appeal.Philip Dunne, MP for Ludlow, today called on his constituents to donate spare or unwanted shoes for the 45th Blue Peter annual appeal. Mr Dunne met Blue Peter presenter, Zoe Salmon, last week at the House of Commons where he donated old shoes.

The 'Shoe Biz' Appeal is asking children across the UK to collect shoes which will be recycled to raise money for children orphaned by Aids in Malawi, Southern Africa.

Mr Dunne said: "Anyone with spare or unwanted shoes should consider giving them to this worthwhile cause. The Shoe Biz Appeal will help thousands of Malawi children, many of whom are AIDS orphans."

Blue Peter will be working with Unicef, the United Nations' children's fund, whose Children's Corners offer real hope to a generation facing devastation. In Malawi, somebody dies of an Aids related illness every eight minutes, as a result Malawi now has more than 600,000 child orphans.

For the next three months, Blue Peter will be full of shoe collecting antics, shoe donating celebrities (including Madonna, David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Monty Panesar) and hard hitting true life stories in Malawi. Viewers will be asked to collect as many of the nation's unwanted shoes as possible, with an initial target of 500,000 pairs.

Recycled shoes generate funds by being sold abroad in countries where people find it easier to afford second hand shoes. Shoe Biz shoes will pay for memory books, crayons, pens, blankets, cooking utensils, garden kits, footballs, goats, books, chairs, swings, scales, water pumps and the training of support workers.

Photo: Philip Dunne presents old shoes to Blue Peter's Zoe Salmon