Project HOPE UK’s flagship programme, The Thoughtful Path: Munsieville, has been awarded a grant by the Big Lottery Fund (a grant-making body of the UK National Lottery) to support important new components of the ten-year strategy to create a world-class model of excellence in sustainable, community-based care of orphans and other vulnerable children.
The entire project is focussed on local community mobilisation through which the people of Munsieville, near Johannesburg, South Africa, introduce far-reaching changes to their lifestyle and to the structures of their community in a bid to make it the best possible environment in which vulnerable children can be raised, reversing the low life-expectancy and attainment that is endemic within Africa’s slum settlements. The award from the Big Lottery Fund will cover the costs of a new Health Promotion Unit – a team of professionals who will assist the programme’s seven “Hubs” (action groups) to develop and deliver health strategies impacting every phase of child development from birth to adulthood.
The grant will also see the launch of a 24 hour emergency response service in the township accessible by any child who feels vulnerable, threatened or in need of support. Project HOPE UK will also be able to double the number of places on its Early Childhood Development training programme – in partnership with Safe & Sound Learning Association – to equip community members to give the very best support to pre-school children across Munsieville.
Executive Director, Paul Brooks, said, “This grant is as a tremendous breakthrough for this project, and a major endorsement for Project HOPE UK’s sustainability strategy. This programme is about empowering the community to do things for itself, so the benefits continue long after we have withdrawn. Every penny of this grant will be used in that process – training, equipping, mentoring, and leaving a strong community that is an example and inspiration to others”.
