Derby County in the Community have teamed up with Veolia Environmental Services to launch a shirt amnesty

The Rams are holding the shirt amnesty between 14th and 31st January 2012, with all shirts collected to be donated to Kit Aid.

KitAid is a charity set up by one of Veolia's employees, Derrick Williams MBE, who visited Tanzania on a WaterAid supporters' trip in 1998. Derrick, being a mad football fan, was amazed at the reception he received from children and adults in remote villages just because he wearing his favourite football shirt.

After two weeks in Tanzania, a flame was lit in Derrick's heart and he was on a mission to provide kit and equipment to the bare-footed children playing with footballs made of tied string and plastic bags. Fourteen years on, KitAid has Graham Taylor OBE as its Patron, lots of volunteers and to date they've sent out 170,000 kits to children and adults in 35 different countries across the world.

Now Veolia are calling on Derby County fans to help play their part. If you have any unwanted shirts tucked away in a drawer or hidden away in the loft which are no longer of any use, why not dig them out and take part in the amnesty for a very worthy cause.

"We are absolutely delighted to be working with Derby County and we can guarantee a very good home for all of the donated shirts," said Kevin Hurst, Marketing and Communications Director, Veolia Environmental Services

"Through KitAid these shirts will be sent all across Africa, Asia and even to South America. These shirts are important as they can sometimes double as a child's wardrobe as well as spreading the word of Derby County."

Derby County CEO Tom Glick added: "I would like to encourage all our supporters to get involved in the shirt amnesty and give as many shirts as possible. It would be fantastic to see a large number of unwanted Derby County shirts from the past put to good use and we're delighted to be working alongside Veolia and KitAid to make this happen."

All supporters need to do to donate their shirts - whether they are Derby County strips or any other team - is to drop them off at the amnesty drop-off point in shopDCFC, which is located at Pride Park Stadium.