History and Overview

The Raising Hope Foundation was founded in January 2009 by Kinza Mason, a UCL law student from Horsham. Kinza first visited Ghana in 2008 to work with the Living Faith Foundation, in her words :

'After spending 4 weeks with Agnes and the children at LFF I knew I would be back. Agnes has been working with children for most of her life, she has devoted everything to making a difference in their lives - and she has. She runs a school and has 20 children living in a home with her. I wanted to help her with a dream she has had for a long time - to run an orphanage in her home village of Santrokofi. Santrokofi has over 80 needy children, all registered to Agnes's care through social welfare. At the moment most of these children live with elderly relatives or extended family. This system is not working - many children are passed from home to home, and have to work rather than properly attend schoool. We've met with the village chiefs and local social welfare, and concluded that the best things for these children would be to have their own home, from which they would attend the local schools. This would provide the children with stability, full access to education, food and health care.

I set up the charity after a second visit to Ghana over Christmas 2008. We have a board of 6 trustees, and over 15 ambassadors - all of whom have visited and volunteered in Ghana. We began building the home in Summer 2009, with the foundations being completed by Christmas 2009. Over the summer of 2010 the walls went up, and now the window frames and gables are being completed. We have raised over £30,000, and have over £50,000 to go.

In the interim we have been supporting the children of the village with an annual summer camp. Volunteers ran a summer school with an average daily attendance of 80 children, for 2 weeks. We tutored them in maths, english and science as well as giving them the opportunity to do art and games. The children loved it and we will be running a similar programme this summer.

We have also offered scholarships to children going into further education. In 2009 we were able to help Kwame Atadmzi go to univeristy to study art, we've also sold some of his paintings for him at Ghana themed evenings in the UK. In 2010 and currently we are supporting Peace, a girl we got to know through the summer camp, paying her fees so that she can attend Senior School.'  

Who are we?

RHF is largely run by young people, students and recent graduates. We are a small charity and all of our work is done voluntarily - every single penny that is donated will go to the children in Ghana. Many of our team are based in Horsham, West Sussex, with links to UCL, Portsmouth University, UEA, Birmingham  University and St Marys University London.

Trustees:

Kinza Mason (Chairwoman), Simon Mason (Treasurer), Hannah Borrett (Fundraising), Bethan Borrett (Media), Bethan Mason (Secretary), John Howberry-Gale (Advisor)

How are we funded?

As a small charity we rely hugely on private donations and fundraising. To date we have held several large fundraising events - The Three Peaks Challenge in 2009, Arch to Arc cycle in 2010, Seven Sisters Hike 2010. We have held several fundraising evenings, quizzes, cheese and wine, Ghanaian themed evenings etc. We have also had the support of individuals running marathongs, 10ks, bike rides etc.

Kinza Mason was awarded a scholarship from UCL for the work with the charity, receiving a grant for the charity.

We receive ongoing support from Rehoboth Baptist Church, Horsham.

We have also received support from the Lindsay Foundation.