A Kirkby Lonsdale-based charity which is celebrating 10 years since it achieved registered status has marked its milestone by partnering with a local creative studio.
Children of Hope will now be the official charity partner of Single Malt, also based in Kirkby Lonsdale, as it marks a decade since its launch to help vulnerable communities in Uganda and provide children with education and access to health care.
The first project to coincide with the milestone was a new website and branding, created by the Single Malt team.
Juliet Burd, UK director of Children of Hope, said: “The charity began as an educational charity and our core focus was sponsoring children through education in Uganda. However, throughout our visits over there, we quickly realised that one of the key reasons why the children were struggling in school, or missing school, was due to their health – ultimately, if their healthcare was suffering, so was their education.
“Over the last ten years our aim has been to break the cycle of poverty and to help and empower some of the poorest and most vulnerable children and young people to access education and build better lives for themselves and their families. Spreading the word and raising awareness about what we do is vital, however our previous website needed a complete overhaul. We were totally blown away by the Single Malt team’s generous offer to rebuild it for us. Beforehand, we were rather embarrassed to direct people to the website, but now we’re extremely proud to show it off and use it as a platform to tell our story and demonstrate the work that we’re doing.”
Rob Ellis, managing director of Single Malt, said: “When the Children of Hope team first came to see us, we knew we wanted to help, but what we really wanted to do was make a difference to the families in Uganda. However small that might be. Working alongside Children of Hope and our development partner, Tom Skarbek-Wazynski at Ninesenses, we set about providing a new website that would convey the incredible daily work that the charity does to help the Ugandan communities. As well as building a website, we also developed their existing brand to suit their personality and core values. This was done completely as a passion project to enable Children of Hope to concentrate on their core aims.”
Sarah Miller, designer at Single Malt, added: “It was paramount for us as a team to fully understand the Children of Hope mission before starting on this project. From the first meeting we gained a huge appreciation for everything the charity do, and were truly touched by their work. They are a very inspiring charity doing amazing things, therefore, we were honoured to donate our time to their cause.”