Being a volunteer what does it involve?

A new volunteer must fundraise €5,000 to make it on the trip. On our Building Blitz you will get to work for 1 week in a South African township.

Niall Mellon has always said: “This is a life changing experience that will never leave you.” Thousands of volunteers have said afterwards that this has been the case. It has given them a real insight into how difficult living conditions are for people living in shacks.

Every volunteer is brought through a development education programme as well as the physical building programme.

The volunteer experience is about giving of yourself for a week to help others.  In doing so we hope you get even more out of it.  It opens all of our eyes to see up close a different world lived by our fellow human beings.

To get through the week you need to develop your adaptability, co-operation skills, physical energy and most of all have a bit of fun throughout it all. It is a tough week, but great fun at the same time.

 

What are the costs of flights and accommodation?

The cost of flight and hotels combined is €1,206 per volunteer for 2010.

 

What are the other costs covered by my €5,000?

€300 of your fundraising also goes towards insurance, water, lunch on site, your kit for the week (t-shirts) medical costs and transport to and from site.

 

Is it true we stay in 3 or 4 star accommodation?

Yes, it is the case and this is fully included in your cost of €1,206.  The Southern Sun Group partnered with the Niall Mellon Township Trust over the last four years, not only have they reduced all of their costs significantly for us, many of their staff have actively built within the townships with us over the same period.

The Niall Mellon Township Trust is an integral part of the SSG corporate social responsibility programme.  In choosing the SSG Group the charity had to factor in the location of their properties, security and close proximity of volunteers.

The Niall Mellon Township Trust continuously strives to bring costs down to ensure as much of your fundraising money goes towards our year round construction, community development and skills training work.

 

Out of the 2,000 people employed directly and indirectly by the Niall Mellon Township Trust in South Africa, how many Irish people are employed in South Africa full time?

There is only one full time paid Irish employee in South Africa. Niall Mellon's mission for the past eight years has been to grow and develop a local South African workforce and to generate as much local employment as possible. This has been one of the greatest successes of the charity.

 

How much local employment is generated?

The Niall Mellon Township Trust employs directly 104 full time staff and 38 community and site staff.

The charity has generated additional local employment and training opportunities for over 2,000 sub-contractors. Most of these contractors are employed from Townships within the communities were the charity is building.

 

What other work is the charity involved in?

The Niall Mellon Township Trust’s primary objective is to promote and financially assist with the provision of housing. The charity partners communities, local, provincial and national government to address the issues of township dwellers. The Niall Mellon Township Trust acts as a community facilitator, skills and life training organisation and provider of community facilities.

The charity launched its Skills Training Programme in 2009 and to-date we have trained 300 people.  This has been solely funded by the charity and in 2010 one of our primary goals is to expand this programme and make it available to more people in the townships where we work.

Our Skills Development Programme provides for a sustainable future for those who participate through a combination of physical and life skills training that run simultaneously. By running this programme we are enabling our employees and sub-contractors to attain a skill that, in turn, provides them with an opportunity to earn an income.

The Niall Mellon Township Trust wants the workplace to become an active learning environment that provides opportunities to acquire new skills and new entrant’s opportunities to the labour market.

 

How much does the South African government give towards the housing subsidy?

In 2002 the South African government paid R11, 000 towards the housing subsidy on the first project started by Niall Mellon. They have steadily increased this amount and over the last two years the South African government has increased the top structure subsidy to R43, 506. An additional subsidy is allowed for the foundation of houses which varies depending upon the gradient and difficult ground conditions.  The South African government deserves credibility and recognition for their huge increase in the housing subsidy over the past 8 years and particularly over the past two years.

 

How many trips does the Niall Mellon Township Trust do per year?

The Niall Mellon Township Trust has one annual 1 week Building Blitz. Last year we did have two trips to accommodate the extraordinary demand for volunteers to participate in our programme.

The remaining 51 weeks the charity generates employment for approx 2,000 local people in South Africa.

Throughout the year the Niall Mellon Township Trust has local South African Volunteer building days which have attracted over 3,500 South African volunteers in the last two years.

 

What is the charity’s view on volunteer tourism?

We have seen the benefits of it many ways:

• The volunteer benefits from seeing first-hand the appalling conditions our fellow human beings live in.
• Local effort is hugely inspired to see that so many people from the other side of the world care about their plight.
• It brings extra money to build a better standard of house.
• Local government is inspired to lobby for more funds to build similar 'Niall Mellon’ houses.
• The Niall Mellon Township Trust was the first organisation to introduce on a large scale, clay tile roofs, hot water geysers, solar panels and many of these features have now been adopted nationally. This was only made possible by volunteer funds.  
• In South Africa many social barriers still remain since the Apartheid regime and the visible sight of thousands of pale faced Irish people working in townships has stirred up local thinking and resulted in thousands of South Africans volunteering on our programme, many of whom had not been in townships previously.
• The Niall Mellon Township Trust and our volunteers all have a social responsibility to our communities, our country and our global neighbours to respect each other.  Our volunteers travel with us to participate in our building and education programme. We run a series of volunteer briefing meetings around the country to inform our volunteers of their role in our building and development education programme during their time with us.
• Many of our volunteers have returned more in tune with their own communities back home in Ireland and have played a more active role in their own communities, volunteering.
• A large number of our volunteers are parents themselves and their example (volunteering overseas) to their own children has been incalculable with many benefits.

There has been some recent publicity on the tension between Irish Aid and the Niall Mellon Township Trust, what is this about?

Niall Mellon made a public call in November 2009 and asked Irish Aid to directly support each volunteer to recognise their individual fundraising effort and support it through this recession.

Irish Aid responded by saying they were waiting on a report on the €5m previously given. The Niall Mellon Township Trust had given a previous report on the €5m and both sides agreed by year end 2009 they were happy and Irish Aid announced the €5m had been fully accounted for.

The Niall Mellon Township Trust has made another application for funds from Irish Aid and is hopeful of a positive response.

As one of the largest charities in Ireland we want the large support we have received from Irish people to be endorsed financially by Irish Aid. We are eight years old and have been recognised globally as a leading housing charity and are pleased that Irish Aid became a key donor with us from 2007/2008.

 

It was recently reported that the charity is crowding out local contractors in South Africa, is this case?

The Niall Mellon Township Trust is not a contractor we are a partner, we partner communities, local and provincial government on housing delivery, community development and skills training. There are no other organisations offering the range of community delivery and support service that we provide.

We engage local sub-contractors from the communities where we work, as a community partner we have always encouraged local employment. Our skills training programme was established to train and promote local employment.

 

Does the charity tender for contracts?

The Niall Mellon Township Trust has a defined model of what we do, construction, volunteerism and social development. Our preferred method of delivery is through the PHP process. This is a community lead process and as a community partner this is where our focus is.

In 2007 an effort to speed up delivery and entice service delivery suppliers the South Africa government reduced the allocation of PHP projects and increased the allocation for contractor/tender projects. The charity applied for a number of these in the areas where we were concentrated, on the basis that we kept continuity with our workforce.

Although we have been awarded a number of tendered contracts, the majority of our work has always been under the PHP process, a process that has not been attractive to local contractors as it requires more than just housing delivery.

 

What is PHP?

PHP is The People Housing Process. It is a community lead process supported by the government to assist communities in housing delivery.  We act as a partner of the community in a three pronged approach, construction, volunteerism and social development. The community initiate, manage, and deliver the PHP process we assist in this process.

 

Have we the support of the South African Government?

Yes in bucket loads. We were awarded in 2009 the prestigious Govan Mbeki award in Gauteng for best low cost subsidy house builder.

In 2009 the city of Cape Town also showed their continuing support for our work by awarding the Niall Mellon Township Trust, the prestigious Cape Town Mayors Medal at a full sitting of Council members in recognition of 'outstanding contribution in Social Services'. Niall Mellon became the first foreigner to receive this award.