The Happold Foundation is pleased to announce that Futures Organisational Grants have been awarded to Catalytic Action and MATT+ FIONA.
Our Organisational Grant is a core funding grant which provides £30,000 per year for a three-year period to organisations that work in areas of education (Year 1-13) and the built environment. We award funding to organisations that we feel make a significant contribution to combating climate change and social inequality, as well as their exceptional educational programmes for young people.
We are very proud to announce that we have awarded grant funding to Catalytic Action, a charity that works internationally in over 20 countries, using design and architecture to give opportunities to vulnerable and displaced children and their communities. They work with young people to design and build spaces that benefit their local area, for example community centres, playgrounds and educational buildings. Through participatory activities and sustained community engagement, the organisation has delivered several transformational projects.
A recently completed community centre in Karantina, Beirut (credit: Catalytic Action)
In collaboration with UNICEF, the UN, dpu and UCL have produced a Handbook entitled “Co-designing built interventions with children affected by displacement (DeCID)”. The publication aims to raise the number and quality of built interventions that have been designed for children impacted by displacement, improving their quality of living and urban environment.
Kitty Walker, Happold Foundation Trustee and grant panel member said “Catalytic Action are a new organisation for us to work with and we are so excited to support the amazing work they are doing. We were really impressed with their reach and impact in the past nine years pursuing an inclusive future through supporting communities via direct built interventions. We are looking forward to building a relationship with them over the next three years.”
Riccardo Conti from Catalytic Action, commented “We are extremely happy and honoured to have been selected for a Happold Foundation Organisational Grant. As a small charity that works to empower vulnerable communities through participatory design, this grant will be of great support in our charity’s next strategic steps. It will contribute to improving the sustainability of the organisation, amplifying the reach and impact of our work.”
We are also delighted that we will be continuing to support MATT+FIONA who we have partnered with for several years. Their inspirational work has seen them delivering social enterprise projects designed to empower young people to take ownership of the built environment around them. Following on from a successful programme of live ‘build’ projects, which saw students being involved from the briefing stages of a project all the way through to the delivery, MATT+FIONA have now launched two new initiatives, ‘Learn’ and ‘Connect’. These new programmes will incorporate workshops and learning programmes; aiming to ensure a truly sustainable, accessible, and inclusive future for the built environment.
Models made as part of a Design Challenge for schools across Tendring and Colchester (Credit: MATT+FIONA)
The young designers, builders and performers behind the Brixton House Theatre project (Credit: MATT+FIONA)
MATT+ FIONA was awarded our very first Futures Organisational Grant as part of a trial project in 2020, which proved very successful. Despite the challenges of working during Covid lockdowns, they have doubled the number of projects, and tripled the number of children that they work with. The charity has now completed over 30 buildings and installations.
Maddie Adas, Ambassador for the Foundation, who was on the grant selection panel commented, “The work MATT+FIONA do for the community and opportunities they provide to young people is unparalleled. They centre their work around a hands-on BUILD approach, offering opportunities for young people to design and build their own spaces enriching the communities around them.”
Fiona MacDonald from MATT+FIONA said “MATT+FIONA is very grateful to the Happold Foundation for committing to another three years of invaluable support. The grant will be transformational in enabling us to test and develop our own core programmes that respond to growing need, including a teacher training programme and a cultural co-design fund.”