Big aid as lottery plays its part in bringing hope

Area:

countries outside the UK
UK-wide

Programme:

International Small Grants

Release date:

2 3 2007

In an initiative that really will break new ground, BIG is ploughing £302,605 into Operation Fresh Start – a project established by London-based AfriKids. The human rights project aims to improve the lives of 150 Kumasi street children and their families in Northern Ghana.

What makes AfriKids unique is their holistic approach to tackling child trafficking, children living on the streets and child labour. They have been running a pilot programme, funded by the Pears Foundation, to resettle 10 children from Kumasi over the past 18 months. It’s proving a huge success; all 10 children are happy and working hard in their new lives.

Sally Eastcott, AfriKids Fundraising Manager, said:  “Operation Fresh start is such an inspirational project; I am in constant awe of the transformation the project manager Cletus, and the children have made in their lives. Securing this grant is fantastic for AfriKids as an organisation, but also to us all on a personal level because the team in Ghana is so passionate about the project and are very eager to scale up. Being able to tell them that we have the funding to scale it up to 150 children has made this the best day in my working life- thank you!”    

Cletus Anaaya, Operation Fresh Start Project Manager, added: “At first there was a problem with the children not believing the project would actually happen. They have experienced promises by other NGOs to send them home, but these eventually failed, so they didn’t want to base all their hopes on this project… That, at last, AfriKids tried it and did it successfully is quite remarkable and so as we took off at the Race Course in Kumasi for Bolga, it was the talk of the day there; that AfriKids had broken the jinx. How proud I felt!”

Staying in Africa, an injection of £255,772 from BIG to Hounslow-based Microloan Foundation (MLF) will translate into positive benefits for women’s groups in Malawi. The microfinance charity, who have been running pilot projects in the area, provide loans and training to groups of local women to help them build sustainable businesses.

The scheme works by providing a business start up loan to one person within a group, but the group takes collective responsibility for repayment, ensuring that members support each other in their business activities. The objectives are to providing skills training to groups in focused areas of business expertise and offer HIV/AIDS and nutrition courses to groups so that they can minimise the health risks that they face.

Aida Mugonde is 29 and a single mother of three children. After her husband divorced her she was left with no source of income and survived from subsistence farming.  The MLF provided her with training in knitting and sewing, and a loan to set up her own business. She says: "After training from Microventures, I now run a tailoring business sewing dresses, shirts, school uniforms and baby duvets. I have paid off my original loan of 10,000 Kwacha (£38) and managed to make profits of nearly MWK30,000 (£113). I have used this money to build my own house with a tin roof and send my children to school.”

Peter Ryan, Chairman, Microloan Foundation, said: “Since starting out in Malawi in 2002, the Microloan Foundation has grown from a man on a bike with £10,000 and a pc, to an organisation which is on course to give out 10,000 loans this year, with 96% of the money being paid back in full. We have always believed in tackling poverty with a holistic approach: our key initiatives - business training, health education and the UK trading arm - have all started in this way. This vote of support from the BIG has come at exactly the right time and we are hugely grateful. For the sake of the people we are helping it is our duty to use it wisely. Regular updates will be issued on our website: www.microloanfoundation.org.uk”

The focus on HIV/AIDS projects in Africa continues with the news that International development through Sport UK, will utilise £501,983 to use football as a development tool in South Africa. Football activities will have thematic focuses, such as Kicking AIDS Out, which includes HIV prevention messages; young people will also be trained and educated in HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention and gender equality. Still in Africa, the African Medical and Research Foundation collect £500,000 to improve the health and quality of life for disadvantaged nomadic pastoralist communities in Kenya. The nomadic communities will gain improved access to clean water; become better equipped to access their basic human rights, and will, through training, augment their knowledge to prevent and mitigate the affects of HIV/AIDS.

BIG is also delighted to announce funding for a project that will invest in skills and new opportunities for tsunami-hit lives in Thailand, Sri Lanka and India. Transrural Trust, an Oxfordshire-based charity, is gearing up to embark on a £471,550 (overall project budget is £501,550), five-year project to help women affected by the tsunami create sustainable livelihoods; the planned modus operandi involves making optimum use of additional household income for the benefit of their children’s health and education. Moreover, there is a need to empower women to earn autonomous incomes in countries where many men work overseas.

Mrs Pappa, leader of a women’s group, in Tamil Nadu, explained: “Money from abroad has paid for some new homes and new boats for fishermen. In fact, there are now so many boats that there is a problem of over-fishing! But the markets that we rely on have not recovered. We need support to help us rebuild our markets in a new way over the next few years”.

Trevor Lucey, Transrural’s director said: “The Tsunami knew no political boundaries. Our project will roll out not only in Thailand but also on the southernmost tips of Sri Lanka and India. This new project will enable craftswomen hit by the tsunami to make imaginative use of a selection of locally-available coastal materials, including fish bones and scales, coconut and sea shells, and natural fibres from the banana and sisal plants.  This new project will result in some intriguing products for the expanding local market and also for Fair Trade markets here in UK, notably in Oxfordshire.  Watch out for fish-scale earrings!”  

Big Lottery Fund Chair, Sir Clive Booth said: “Today’s awards, which I’m delighted to be announcing, are continuing a long tradition of Lottery good cause money for UK charities working overseas. Tackling heavyweight issues like HIV/AIDS in Africa, human rights and post-tsunami reconstruction is a big priority for the British public. We have earmarked a total of £72 million pounds for UK-based charities working overseas, and I hope our money will continue to improve life chances and opportunities for some of the most disadvantaged people in the developing world.”

The Big Lottery Fund has also announced a number of small grants of up to £10,000, awarded to UK charities to carry out research and analysis as part of their project planning and to facilitate future funding bids.  The new International Small Grants awarded today are:

Further Information
Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030
Textphone:  845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors

• The Big Lottery Fund rolls out close to £2 million in Lottery good cause money every 24 hours which together with other Lottery distributors means that across the UK most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
• The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004.
• On 1 December 2006 the Big Lottery Fund was officially established by Parliament and at the same time assumed the residual responsibilities of the dissolved National Lottery Charities Board (Community Fund) the New Opportunities Fund, and the Millennium Commission. The Fund is building on the experience and best practice of the merged bodies to simplify funding in those areas where they overlap and to ensure Lottery funding provides the best possible value for money.
• UK-wide, the Big Lottery Fund will distribute through its new programmes and allocations funding worth over £2.6bn between now and April 2009.  Regularly updated information on the Big lottery Fund’s new programmes is available at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/publications.htm
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to Good Causes. As a result, over £19.5 billion has now been raised and more than 250,000 grants given out across the arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.

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