Happiness Fund first ever charity grant
We’ve made someone wheelie happy!
It’s always been the Laughology mission to sprinkle some good wherever we go, whether that’s creating happy workplaces, happy schools, or turning run-of-the-mill work conferences into laugh-out-loud events.
Call us old-fashioned, but we believe in leaving places a little better than they were before we arrived. That’s why we launched the Happiness Fund. Its aim is to provide grants to sustainable grassroots community projects.
And we are delighted to announce the first recipient of a Happiness Fund grant is Harrow Cycle Hub, a worthy winner of £2500 which is making a real difference to its community. We had hundreds of applications for the first tranche of funds and chose this brilliant scheme because it encapsulated exactly what we were looking for.
About Harrow Cycle Hub
Harrow Cycle Hub became a registered charity in 2021 and was established to meet a massive need in the diverse community, where most Muslim women had never learned to cycle, but who wanted to, particularly when so many cycle schemes were being created during the pandemic.
Veronica Chamberlain, Chair of the Hub, explains: “We realised there was a huge population in Harrow who didn’t know how to cycle, therefore didn’t have a bike and couldn’t use the new cycle facilities set up during the pandemic. They found that all their family except them could cycle, and they wanted to be part of the family outings.”
In the first year, the charity offered the community 100 places on the learn-to-ride and confidence-building courses it ran. 95 percent of participants were women and 95 of those were from minority ethnic communities.
“Their parents never taught them because they didn’t think it was a suitable thing for girls to do,” explains Veronica.
A need in the community
As this was the first grant we’ve given, it was a steep learning curve for us, but we know we’ve backed a winner.
Let’s be honest, we know £2500 is not a Euro Lottery win, which is why we took extra care to make sure we chose a scheme with a high bang-for-bucks quota. And that’s just what this great charity provides.
It serves a real need in the community, providing bicycle riding lessons and sessions plus social events, for communities that have previously been excluded from cycling, through cultural traditions or disabilities.
Our donation will enable the Hub to buy two adaptive bikes that will be enjoyed by riders with disabilities for years to come.
