Supported Projects

The Khanyisa programme uses transformative education techniques and the southern African concept of Ubuntu to support young people in exploring their own attitudes and beliefs around gender inequality, gender-based violence, HIV and AIDS, power and peace.

Mandala Trust supported Sareka’s painting project for children living on the Sihanoukville dumpsite. Selling the paintings generated income to buy art materials, and also to provide the dumpsite community with medical treatments, rice, protective clothing, and a press and other materials to make recycled paper.

Mandala Trust funded the work of Lighthouse Relief in the Ritsona Refugee Camp in mainland Greece, thereby helping to support a child-friendly space where 3 to 11 year olds can learn through play and regain some sense of normality, as well as a sanctuary for mothers and babies.

Mandala Trust supported the ChoraChori trauma management centre, providing psychosocial care and skills training to Nepali children rescued from sex work and other abusive situations. Our grant is being used to furnish bedrooms, office, art therapy room and sensory room.

Mandala Trust supports a Colectiva Mujeres (women’s collective) who transformed a small building into a community centre with regular yoga sessions for mothers and children and a daily breakfast club for all local children. We are now building a Kindness School to expand this work.

A hostel for homeless street children was opened through Mandala Trust funding in 2003, providing a loving family environment, nutritious food, medical care, and educational support and recreational activity.

Mandala Trust worked with ‘Helping Refugees in Jordan’ in its inspiring projects to provide high quality, compassionate education for traumatised Syrian and Iraqi refugee children.

Mandala Trust partnered with Irish Medical Aid for Palestinians (IMAP) to support CJGHC in its work with children and young people affected by the 2014 Gaza War.

The Bhwasa Community Medical Centre was founded in order to build and maintain a small general surgery in Bethan, an isolated community in rural Nepal. Funding from Mandala Trust has helped provide medical equipment and supplies, and to support the welfare of local children.

Koinonia Trust works with community leaders to support personal, family and community development. Mandala Trust funded training of local people as trauma healing facilitators for children, an educational project, kit for a youth football team, and instruments for a youth choir.

250,000–300,000 children are living and working on the streets across Kenya. Mama Upendo Children’s Home offers a safe, loving place for some of them. Mandala Trust equipped the nursery classroom and enabled staff training in Early Childhood Development.

For the past 30 years, Gaza-based Theatre for Everybody has provided a creative forum for children to express their problems and concerns. Mandala Trust funding has enabled drama workshops for young people, resulting in two presentations which were publicly performed and filmed.

In 2007 an 8.0 magnitude earthquake devastated the Peruvian port city of Pisco. Working with Ludoteca Children’s Centre, Mandala Trust funded classroom repairs and a teacher’s salary, allowing 40 children to be fed and made welcome in a warm learning and play space.

Thunzi Primary School is situated in KwaThunzi, deep in rural KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. A Mandala Trust donation, along with volunteer labour, resulted in a new brick kitchen which now produces a daily meal of rice, beans and vegetables for around 70 children.

Anandwan, in the Indian State of Maharashtra, is an ashram and a community rehabilitation centre for leprosy patients and the disabled. Mandala Trust supported the Anandwan schools with solar-powered water heaters and water purifiers, mosquito nets, and shoes and clothing for the students.

In the Occupied West Bank, many families struggle to support their young people through higher education. Mandala Trust partnered with the charity Spring Up Foundation to fund partial scholarships to help Palestinian students complete their university or further education course.

After the devastating Sichuan earthquake of May 2008, Mandala Trust supported the efforts of local charity, the Yellow River Soup Kitchen, in alleviating the suffering of those left homeless. Emergency supplies were taken to remote, extremely poor rural areas, and a local school was repaired.

Mandala Trust helped to fund a new programme for the Simien Mountains Mobile Medical Service – the first of its kind in Ethiopia – aimed at improving the sexual and reproductive health of approximately 11,000 children and adolescents.

Nearly half of the Syrian refugees in Jordan are children. Mandala Trust funded the start-up of Operation Kindness Jordan and educational materials, play therapy equipment and toys to enable them to offer effective support to children in the refugee community.

In April 2015, a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people and injuring thousands more. In response, Mandala Trust partnered with the Bhwasa Community Medical Centre to provide food, clothing and basic medical supplies to remote communities in most need of support.

Kulungile is a non-profit organisation led by Sister Abegail Ntleko. Abegail was so deeply moved by the plight of the countless orphans left in the wake of the AIDS pandemic that she started fostering and adopting them. Mandala Trust is proud to have offered organisational support and funding to her project.

In 2015, locals in the Greek city of Thessaloniki started providing water, fruit, bread and toys for refugee children. From this grew the Thessaloniki Refugee Solidarity Movement (TRSM). Mandala Trust helped the TRSM purchase essential provisions and equipment, including catering tents, kitchen appliances and electric heaters.

In northern Ethiopia, Mandala Trust supported Dudmegn Elementary School who, at that time, had only two functioning water taps for its 2255 students. The school’s new water-station is now operational, helping teachers and students to stay hydrated and concentrate during classes. The water has also been used to kickstart a mango orchard.

Seir is a small village of some 700 people in Qalqilya, an administrative area of Palestine in the northwestern West Bank. Its school caters for children up to age 13, and is a valuable hub for community events. A grant from Mandala Trust has helped to stock the school’s library with much-needed encyclopedias and textbooks.

Nairobi’s high-security prison for women, Lang’ata, houses many children. There was little indoor space for mothers and their children to spend time together. Mandala Trust provided funding towards a brand new library, providing more than 600 women and children, with access to educational materials.

Abstract: ‘Apoyo a la madre solo’ was set up to support survivors of domestic violence in Venado Tuerto, Argentina. Mandala Trust funded a project to equip and furnish a new ten-bed shelter, offering women and children a place of safety and support.

Discrimination against India’s ‘untouchable’ Dalit minority traps communities in a cycle of poverty and exclusion. Mandala Trust provided funding to the Karuna Trust to implement a project improving access to school for 3,800 Dalit children in Sangamner, rural Maharashtra, central/western India.

Mandala Trust also supported a project to construct new toilet blocks at Kera Hora Elementary School in central Ethiopia. Previously the school had a single insanitary metal shed, used by pupils and teachers of both sexes. The new blocks have separate cubicles for males and females, as well as toilets with disabled access.

In Liberia, 51% of children under 18 have been orphaned, while 40% of children under 5 suffer malnutrition. Mandala Trust supported the ULICA school in Saclepea, renovating the library, providing core textbooks, an electrification project, and school bakery.

Mandala Trust funded the initial 12-month pilot project costs for OK Uganda's initiative, the Kampala Kindness Co-operative. This youth co-operative seeks to model a way of transforming society by promoting social and economic solidarity amongst young people working together for the common good.

The School Libraries Project was a joint operation between FAWEZA (Forum for African Women Educationalists of Zambia), Mandala Trust and Irish and British volunteers, which resulted in the shipment of containers of school books and school uniforms to ten girls’ secondary schools.

KwaZulu-Natal was the epicentre of South Africa’s HIV pandemic — at its height, in some communities 60% of women were HIV+. The Khuphuka Project is a community care and support programme serving the Mqatsheni tribal region. Mandala Trust, with London Insight Meditation, supported various aspects of this innovative project.