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Photo by Toby Peters

You can contact us by the following correspondence address :
29, Melford Close, Longthorpe, Peterborough. PE3 9NG
e-mail – handinhandtrust@hotmail.co.uk
Correspondent with the Charities Commission –14, Lea Crescent, Ruislip Gardens, Middlesex. HA4 6PP

The nurseries are specifically for children suffering the effects of poverty and where the majority of the parents have suffered in the same way from their own childhood.
Poverty is the inability to feed, clothe, house and educate oneself and family due to the lack of adequate financial resources. How this comes about is not our discussion but what the effects are and how they can be relieved are.
Insufficient money means that whole families must live in one room, often only large enough for one bed to be shared by all, with a kerosene cooker almost touching the bed. The entire family live on the bed.
How does a mother try to earn the daily bread? She tries to sell her time, knocking on doors in a better-off neighbourhood pleading to do some washing or cleaning or she sells cheap items, already bought ( sweets, biscuits, cigarettes, batteries etc. ). Many of these sales are made through car and bus windows, darting in and out of the traffic. Dinner that evening will depend on the earnings of the day, mostly rice, potatoes or pasta and root vegetables.
A nursery must take the strain from the parent, assuring her that her child is safe and that she can work without constant tension. A nursery must combat malnutrition by providing a well-balanced diet over 3 meals a day. A nursery must provide stimulation and help the child to ask questions and seek answers. Most of all - a nursery must be a place of warmth and protection like a nest and that nest must be built from our nursery helpers. If we think of a nest we usually picture a structure interwoven and snug so we must devise a programme that creates a staff structure warm and interwoven.
Hence our prime concern in training staff is to form individual helpers into a group. A group whose members will support each other. A group who can advise each other A group who can seriously discuss nursery and staff issues without fear. A GROUP WHO CAN LAUGH, DANCE AND SING WITH EACH OTHER WITHOUT EMBARRASSMENT.
It is in this environment of joy and tranquillity that the babies and children will lose their tensions and enjoy their own sense of self-worth and joy of soul.

Please help