HEREFORDSHIRE HOMEBUILDER DONATES £1,000 TO CHARITY HELPING THOSE WITH NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS

A Ledbury-based charity supporting people with neurological motor disorders has received a contribution of £1,000 from Barratt Homes as part of its Community Fund scheme.

BWM – IMG_2185 – Bev Murphy (R) from Barratt Homes presenting the cheque to Lee Gough (L) at Megan Baker House

Megan Baker House runs sessional services for adults and children with neurological motor disorders and has received the donation from the homebuilder to support its services in the community.

Using the method of Conductive Education (CE), which is a holistic educational movement approach, each participant is actively involved in their learning and can transfer the skills and techniques learnt in a session into all aspects of everyday life.

Mrs Lee Gough, CEO at Megan Baker House, said: “We were thrilled and surprised when Barratt Homes got in touch and it raised our spirits in what is a very testing time for the charity, its staff and clients. Megan Baker House receives no statutory funding and must find all income itself.

“The funding will be used to purchase specialist equipment to help children with developmental co-ordination disorders, and every penny donated helps to ensure that we can continue to help our clients.

“Everyone at Megan Baker House, staff and clients, would like to say thank you to Barratt Homes for thinking of us.”

Megan Baker House was formed in 2002 by Jo and David Baker, parents of Megan Baker, a young lady with cerebral palsy.

Jo and David would take Megan and their three other children to the Peto Institute in Hungary several times a year, where Conductive Education was founded. Due to the costs involved, the family looked to work with a specialist in the UK and later went on to set up the charity to ensure other parents were also able to access such services.

During the sessions available, children are encouraged to be problem-solvers and develop a self-reliant personality that fosters participation, initiative, determination, motivation, independence and self-sufficiency.

Adrian Evans, Managing Director at Barratt Homes West Midlands, said: “Our Community Fund scheme was introduced to support local charities such as Megan Baker House.

“We’re delighted to make a £1,000 donation to the charity and we hope the funding will go a long way to supporting the excellent work carried out in the surrounding communities.”

Having recently launched Project REACHOUT, Megan Baker now operates from several venues in Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Shropshire. It also delivers some services online for those unable to attend in person, developed in response to the lockdowns and self-isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.