To raise €50,000 for the Niall Mellon Township Challenge. This will build 10 houses and provide decent accommodation for about 80 people.

Imizamo Yethu is a township on the outskirts of Cape Town in South Africa. It is a community with approximately 12,000 people. This is small by South African standards and thus there is a very realistic chance of reversing this housing situation for the majority of these people. The aim of the Niall Mellon Township Challenge is to build 450 houses in phase one and a second phase is already planned for approximately an additional 550 houses. The project has been progressing extremely well with 270 houses having been completed to date. A hallmark of this success has been that nearly all building workers are from within the community itself and this has given huge inspiration to many other townships throughout South Africa that the people themselves, under the right leadership within the Townships, can be part of the solution to their own housing crisis.

Last year 700 Irish people from all walks of life went to South Africa and physically helped to build the new houses in the township.

As Niall Mellon founder of the challenge said:
“It has been a great privilege for me to have 700 amazing Irish people work with me on the 2005 Township Challenge. I can’t tell you how proud I am of all of you and how proud each of you make me feel to be Irish. You traveled 6,000 miles to play a part in rebuilding the new South Africa. This new democracy, only eleven years old, is striving to right the wrongs of apartheid. But, the challenge is great. 1.5 million homes have been built since the transition to democracy. That is indeed an achievement. But another 8 million people still live in shacks here. We want to help end this and play a small part in the Trojan efforts to wipe shacks off South African soil and replace them with decent brick homes."

"We will return." Niall Mellon.

MORE INFO: www.mellontownship.com