The Niall Mellon Township Trust was established in 2002 with the aim of providing quality social housing for the impoverished communities in the townships of South Africa. In our first year we completed 150 homes, over the next six years we have completed 11,000 homes in total, 5,000 were built in 2008.

Our success has been possible because of the generosity and support we receive from our Volunteers, the general public, and the Irish and South African governments.

Building through partnership has been our objective from the beginning, Volunteers, community and government. It is the enthusiasm of our Volunteers that has created the awareness of our mission, generated the funding, and brought social housing development to the fore of overseas development work.

Each year since we started we have brought Irish Volunteers to South Africa to participate in a week long “Building Blitz”. In 2008, 2,000 Volunteers travelled from 13 countries to take part in our Building Blitz, during this week an incredible 253 homes were built. This brings to a total of 5,000 volunteers who have participated in our building blitzes to date.

The enormous generosity of Volunteers, partners and donors allow us to build homes in South Africa all year round, we now have a workforce of approx. 1700 South Africans building homes. The charity is heavily involved in training and up-skilling its South African workforce which is a further integral part of the charity’s ethos.

Community development is an integral part of the work of the charity, engaging local people in the planning and design of their new communities. All of this is done in close cooperation and partnership with the South African government at national and local level.

We are currently building in 23 townships, 13 in the Western Cape and 10 in Gauteng, although we have only been in existence for six years we are currently the largest charity provider of quality social homes in South Africa.

For more information see the Charity website www.irishtownship.com