National Lottery grant secured

Local charity Megan Baker House has been awarded a grant of £375,000 from The National Lottery Community Fund to help fund its REACHOUT project.  The grant, £125,000 for each of three years, will help with the core costs of providing its conductive education services for people of all ages who experience movement issues caused by motor disorders such as cerebral palsy, dyspraxia, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis or recovering from a stroke.  The total cost of REACHOUT over the next three years is £1M and will involve recruiting additional staff so that even more people can benefit.

Chief Executive Officer Lee Gough was thrilled to receive news of the grant, “especially as the fund had been oversubscribed and only 20% of applications were successful.  We had been working on this for almost a year and would like to thank the Lottery funding officer for Herefordshire, Anthony Bush, for his help during what was a very demanding time for MBH. There are an estimated twenty-four thousand people with motor disorders in Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Gloucestershire and we are looking forward to helping as many as we can improve their independence.  There are only about fifteen major conductive education centres in the UK so I hope that local people will take full advantage of what is on their doorstep.”

Megan Baker House is currently celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year and has a host of events planned to raise the additional funds needed to secure REACHOUT into the future.  It receives no funding from local or national government but its work has a huge impact on the wellbeing of those who receive the services and their families.  Clients can self-refer for a free assessment, just contact admin@meganbakerhouse.org.uk and for more details look at their website www.meganbakerhouse.org.uk