A SCOTTISH charity which helps tackle poverty in Ghana by teaching people how to make papier mache furniture is celebrating £50,000 of UK Government funding.
Archie Hinchcliffe, a retired physiotherapist, founded Cerebral Palsy Africa in 2005 after seeing how African children with the condition had to lie on the floor for school lessons because of a lack of specialist equipment.
Based in Duns in the Borders, the charity will use the money from the Small Charities Challenge Fund (SCCF) to train 21 Ghanian special needs professionals on how to make the required furniture out of waste paper and flour.
Archie said: “We use a form of papier mache called Appropriate Paper-based Technology, which uses both waste paper and cardboard.
“The furniture is made by sticking layers of cardboard together with flour and water paste.
She added: “Newspaper cut into straps and wrapped around the frame helps lash the whole thing together into the most incredibly tough piece of furniture.
“There are templates for the different sizes of chairs and standing frames. You just adapt a child’s measurements to those templates.
“If you varnish it over the top then that really finishes it all off. People decorate them in the most beautiful ways.”
She said the furniture is incredibly tough and hard, comparing it to a miracle.
The papier mache equipment was developed by her friend Jean Westmacott, who has used a sofa bed made from it for more than 25 years.
Archie said she has two little tables in her sitting room made by using the technique, both of which are attractive and sturdy – able to withstand two people standing on one with no problem.
Cerebral Palsy Africa has previously worked in Malawi and Zambia, with more than 90 children benefitting directly, and 60 teachers trained over six years. The idea is that these teachers will pass what they have learned on to others.
Cerebral palsy occurs when a baby’s brain doesn’t develop normally while in the womb and causes serious movement difficulties that can lead to joint and muscle problems as the child grows.
It costs roughly £12 to make a chair and £15 to make a standing frame out of papier mache.
The Department for International Development (DFID) is hoping to encourage more small Scottish charities apply for funding when its SCCF scheme is re-launched later this year.
A DFID spokesperson said: “Cerebral Palsy Africa’s innovative furniture-making project is giving some of the world’s most vulnerable children the opportunity to go to school.
“Britain’s small charities do an extraordinary amount of good in the world. They embody our generosity and our concern, as a country, for helping others. UK Aid’s Small Charities Challenge Fund is there to make sure they get the support they need to help us end poverty once and for all.
“The fund will re-open this year and we are encouraging small charities from every corner of the UK to apply.”
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