Projects

PHOLA comes from the Nguni word ‘ heal’. This charity was founded by Ncazelo Ncube-Mlilo , one of the pioneers of the internationally renowned narrative therapy approach called the ‘Tree of Life’.The charity strives to provide culturally appropriate trauma counselling and psychosocial services to children, women and families empowering them to ‘become leaders in bringing about social change’ for themselves and their families.

Lifelines has directly, and through its association with Nelumbo Stiftung, committed to supporting Phola’s work in South Africa by contributing towards the operational costs of therapeutic services and sponsoring research studies.

Specific funding outcomes include the sponsorship of workshops and training conferences; the provision of scalable therapeutic services to at least 1000 women/children; and the establishment of weekly group therapy sessions at the Phola Centre aiming to reach 100,000 people with Tree of Life methodology by 2023; and finally, to research and publish case studies and to contribute to academic journals on the ‘living research’.

Think Equal is the brainchild of visionary human activist and BAFTA winning film producer Leslee Udwin. It is a registered UK and US charity established in 2016, whose aims are to promote a holistic approach to education incorporating value-based learning as part of core subject teaching Their work is guided by and endorsed by educators and leading child developmental experts and is specifically focussed on the ‘Early Years’ when the child’s moral framework is beginning to develop.

Think Equal seeks to develop partnerships with educators, policy makers, schools, educational and wellbeing organisations to pioneer the inclusion of social and emotional learning (SEL) within the curricula of Early Years education.

Think Equal’s comprehensive programme incorporating teaching manuals, training and children’s books, have been rolled out to targeted schools ( e.g. India, Kenya, Botswana) and initial impact assessments conducted by the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence, concluded that ‘Results revealed that children exposed to Think Equal were more socially and emotionally skilled and substantially less likely to be angry, aggressive, anxious, or withdrawn than their peers who did not have access to Think Equal.’

Think Equal has attracted the global support of educational philanthropists, child development experts and advocates for transformative social change.
This includes Scholas – Pope Francis’s initiative to promote inclusive social transformational projects; who have actively adopted and partnered with Think Equal’s programme within its network of educational institutions. https://www.scholasoccurrentes.org/

Lifelines working with Nelumbo Stiftung has committed funding for a pilot project primary schools in Tower Hamlets, which includes a fully resourced qualitative research study into methodology and outcomes. Additional funding to roll out the Think Equal programme in Sri Lanka , sponsored entirely by Nelumbo, will commence in late 2020, subject to COVID related restrictions.

Lifelines Trustees meeting with Papa Francisco in December 2019, as part of the collaboration between Think Equal and Scholas.

Satya Special School was established in June 2003, in Pondicherry-India, to provide a safe and secure base for special children with a range of mental and physical disabilities. At the time there were little or no facilities for children with special needs who were often left at home, tied down, or abandoned altogether.

Satya’s ethos is to provide individualised care to each child, and providing training and support to their care-givers. Children are assessed according to their individual and psychological profiles and bespoke training and support provided relevant to their needs. Satya Special School has established training centres and schools , suitably equipped with bespoke disability facilities. Their personnel are highly motivated and skilled , managing a caring and responsive service under the leadership of Mrs Chitra Shah.

Lifelines volunteers have worked with Satya since 2009, and have continued to support its work to date. Current funding has been provided by Lifelines (working with Nelumbo) to sponsor the establishment of an Alternative Inclusive Centre for Education (AICE).

Quest for Learning supports disadvantaged primary school children in Oxfordshire who have fallen behind their peers through high quality English and Maths interventions. Our programmes have been in demand from schools in our county for 24 years. And that’s because what we do works! In just 2 months children on our literacy programmes make 14 months’ progress in reading on average – some make as much as 40 months’ progress!

They have three key literacy and numeracy programmes:

ReadingQuest: designed to boost reading accuracy with highly personalised 1:1 sessions over six weeks, usually with children in Key Stage 1.
BookQuest: delivered to small groups of children, usually in Key Stage 2, who have significant issues with reading comprehension.
NumSkills: game-based activities used by our tutors with small groups of children to boost mental maths and overall confidence.

Lifelines are currently funding a Summer 2021 pilot with a view to supporting a longer term (1 year) programme in future:

Summer 2021 pilot: BookQuest programme delivered to 6 children over 9 weeks from April 2021 to July 2021. BookQuest is taught on a 1:2 basis for 30 minutes, twice a week plus home learning “Quests”.

Crisis is the national charity for people experiencing homelessness. They use a model of change which works alongside people on a 1:1 basis to end their homelessness for good. A core aspect of this model of change is our housing work. The coaches support individuals, helping them draw on their own strengths to break down any barriers that are keeping them from accessing housing.

Over the next 12 months, the coaches will focus on meeting the urgent housing needs of people leaving temporary accommodation and those people made newly homeless as a result of coronavirus. In keeping with Lifeline International’s charitable focus on empowering women, the person-centred, strengths-based approach ensures that they are ideally placed to work with women experiencing homelessness. They sought a donation from Lifelines to support their 1:1 coaching work with women experiencing homelessness, helping them into safe and secure accommodation as quickly as possible. Over the next 12 months, the coaches will support around 250 women into safe and secure housing across Great Britain.

Homelessness services are typically male dominated, reflecting the nature of the overall homeless population. Women experiencing homelessness are less in number but encounter other disadvantages too: the stigma they face from the general public is more acute, and they are in constant risk of abuse. It is not uncommon for them to have become homeless in the first place as a result of fleeing ongoing acts of violence – especially domestic abuse. Research into violence against people sleeping rough (I_t_’s_ _n_o_ _L_i_f_e_ _a_t_ _a_l_l_,_ _2016), found that women who were sleeping rough were proportionally more likely than men to be a victim of violence (36% compared to 29%). They were also more likely to receive verbal abuse and harassment (65% compared to 53%).

Lifelines are funding approximately 250 1:1 coaching sessions to support vulnerable women over the course of a year:

To support their 1:1 coaching work with women experiencing homelessness, helping them into safe and secure accommodation as quickly as possible.

CORD is a rural empowerment charity that works by motivating, mobilizing and enabling communities to work holistically within their own local structures. This includes the provision of rural primary health care and training centres, establishment of self-help groups, support to improve agricultural processes, provision of training resources for youth employment and rural school support.

In late 2019, Lifelines working with Nelumbo, provided funding for ” CORD Training Centre’s Experiential Trainings” and “Women’s Empowerment Program” . These projects will be funded for a period of up to three years.

Lifelines youth volunteers have worked at CORD Sidhbari over several years, many of them returning as adults to provide more professional support or to build links with other charities – such as Friendsline. http://www.friendsline.org

Nirvana School provides high quality education for under privileged children in Tamil Nadu. It currently enables nursery, primary and high school education for more than 500 students, aged 3-15 years.

Nirvana Trust was launched by Mrs. Vinodini Samani in 1994 after the sudden death of her husband Mr. Pravin Samani. Starting with lessons in their home, Mrs Samani has led Nirvana school to a well-established highly regarded organization which has given thousands of under-privileged children a high standard of education. Mrs Samani is the backbone of Nirvana School, personally managing daily work, projects, visiting donors, networking, bringing new approaches to better education… She runs the school on a purely voluntary basis, and does not take a salary or any other payment for her efforts. She is a great inspiration to Nirvana Trust, their staff and the students.

Lifelines has supported Nirvana School for over 8 years, and has led youth volunteering visits to the school during this period.

Pan Intercultural Arts uses intercultural performance work to help facilitate self-expression and promote deeper understanding of our changing cultural identities. They empower people to use the arts as a tool for change in their lives.

John Martin is a founding member of Pan and its artistic director. John is passionate about the Arts and about using dance, drama and music to heal and to rehabilitate. Arts for Social Change works to support the rehabilitation of people affected by war, natural disaster and poverty in many countries. He regularly writes and teaches on issues around interculturalism, creativity and theatre for development in UK and abroad.

Lifelines through its association with Nelumbo is an equally passionate supporter of PAN. In order to support its emergency work during the current COVID-19 crisis, the Nelumbo provided emergency funding for IT equipment, online therapy and interactive online classes.

Sense International (SI) is a global charity that works to support people with deaf blindness in several countries worldwide such as India, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania, Peru and Romania.

In the UK, these projects are managed through Sense UK .

SI works in partnerships with local agencies, government bodies and educational institutions to support the professionals, carers and families of people affected by deaf blindness. See the video in our Resources section.
The support includes training, materials, education and giving a platform to the needs of deaf blind people.

Lifelines has been associated with SI since 2010, starting with youth volunteer visits to the Holy Cross school in Trichy ( the volunteers helped to publish a local manual on educational toys made with household products ) , to the sponsorship of early intervention programs in Romania.

Mr Vadera participates in a fund-raising Trek to Annapurna Base Camp in 2018. The UK based team raised over £400,000 for the work of SI.

The current project being funded by Nelumbo, will be the very first global digital platform to provide libraries for all deaf-blind people. This will be a multi-agency approach and our Trustee – Mr Rupin Vadera, is part of the team currently assessing viability and reach.