# Lively Minds win Ghana UK Based Achievement Award for Best Charity

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/11/26/lively-minds-win-ghana-uk-based-achievement-award-best-charity/
- Published: 2013-11-26T16:41:46+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Lively Minds wins GUBA Award for Charity of the Year** London based International
Development Charity, Lively Minds, has won the British High Commission Charity of
the Year Award at this year’s 4^(th )annual Ghana UK Based Achievement (GUBA) Awards.
Lively Minds were presented with their Award at the ceremony held in London on Saturday
16 November. The award, sponsored and presented by The British High Commissioner
to Ghana, His Excellence Peter Jones, recognised the important contribution Lively
Minds has made to early childhood education in rural Northern Ghana, where the charity
currently runs Play Centres in 38 deprived villages and Reading Schemes in eight
primary schools. Lively Minds founder and CEO Alison Naftalin said:

> “We are so delighted to receive this award and have our work recognised by GUBA.
> We were nominated alongside three other great charities, so we were very excited
> when it was announced at the ceremony that we’d won! “When I set up Lively Minds
> first Play Centre 5 years ago in Ghana – teaching and empowering mothers in one
> village how to make educational games and to run the Centre themselves – I never
> imagined that 5 years later we would grow so much. We’ve since trained over 1,100
> mothers in 38 villages and have reached over 8,600 children in Ghana alone. “Play
> activities are essential to a child’s future development but many children living
> in poverty in rural Ghana do not have the opportunities to play that are readily
> available for children in the UK. It’s this basic learning and development opportunity
> that can help children to build the crucial skills they need if they are to lift
> themselves out of poverty. “This year marks our fifth birthday too – so winning
> this GUBA award is a fantastic end to our anniversary year!”

 Over the next three years, Lively Minds aims to set up 39 Play Centres and Reading
Schemes in Northern Ghana benefitting 15,000 children and 1,100 mothers, partly 
using funding from Comic Relief. It will also support existing communities by providing
regular parenting workshops. Lively Minds also runs their Play Centre project in
Uganda and have set up 28 Play Centres in communities there. For more information
about Lively Minds and how to get involved, visit [www.livelyminds.org](http://www.livelyminds.org/).**
ENDS** Notes to Editors 1.     All media enquiries to: Julia Scodie  – Fundraising
and Marketing Manager [ju***@*********ds.org](https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/11/26/lively-minds-win-ghana-uk-based-achievement-award-best-charity/ju***@*********ds.org)
07921516835 2.     Lively Minds works to improve the lives and the life chances 
of children in deprived rural communities in Northern Ghana. Its flagship projects
are community-run Play Centres that reach children at an early age and give them
the chance to learn and develop key skills – such as numeracy, literacy and creative
thinking skills – through play. The projects achieve sustainability by empowering
communities to use their own skills to run the Centres themselves. All field work
is carried out by specialist local staff teams in country. Their work is facilitated
and supported by a small team in the UK. The charity also works in Uganda. 3.   
GUBA is a non-profit awards event which celebrates exceptional achievement, talent
and ability in the British Ghanaian community and valuable services provided to 
Ghanaians in the UK or Ghana. [www.gubaawards.co.uk](http://www.gubaawards.co.uk/)

  

  

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