Halton Foundation’s grant application period has started
Halton Foundation supports non-profit organisations and initiatives that promote wellbeing of people suffering from poor indoor environmental quality for environmental or economic conditions. Halton Foundation welcomes now new applications. Decision on grants will be made in November 2014.
Halton Foundation is a charity organisation that promotes wellbeing of people suffering from poor indoor environmental quality due to environmental or economic conditions. Annual grants are awarded to non-profit organisations, research programs or initiatives promoting the wellbeing of people in indoor environments.
In 2010, Halton Foundation donated its first grant to the Center for Courageous Kids which is a medical camping facility located in Scottsville, Kentucky USA. The Center provides cost-free summer and weekend camps for seriously ill and disabled children and their families. The Halton Foundation grant enabled the Center for Courageous Kids to organise one week summer camp for children with asthma.
The second grant was given in 2012 to the Paul Basch Memorial Foundation to help in its Himalayan Stove project. The Stove Project is dedicated to improving the health of the people in the trans-Himalayan region. The organisation provides free, clean-burning, highly fuel-efficient cook stoves to families living in the Himalayas who now cook with traditional, rudimentary stoves over open fire pits inside their homes, consuming excessive amounts of precious fuel and polluting the indoor air to dangerously unhealthy levels.
The third grant was given in 2013 to the University of Reading for a 2-year joint research project between the University of Reading and Chongqing University in China. The project is on School Indoor Environment & Ventilation Control Strategies for Children’s Health & Wellbeing and will involve investigating indoor environmental conditions and developing control strategies to mitigate the level of contaminations for the classrooms located in urban areas in order to improve health and wellbeing for school children.
The scope of Halton Foundation
Halton Foundation’s scope covers initiatives related to indoor air quality, thermal conditions, breathable particulates and illnesses, conditions or diseases that may result from sub-standard indoor environmental quality.
As a special area of interest, Halton Foundation has identified two global indoor air quality problems: indoor air pollution from the cooking process in developing countries and high levels of outdoor contaminants in indoor air in developed countries:
Developing countries: Developing countries: indoor air pollution born by cooking process
More than half of the world’s population, mostly in developing countries, rely on polluting biomass fuels to meet their basic energy needs. Cooking and heating with these fuels on open fires or stoves without chimneys mean the hazardous pollutants and dust particles remain in the indoor air. In such conditions indoor smoke can exceed acceptable particle levels for small particles in outdoor air even 100-fold. The health impacts are significant and disproportionate on women and children as they are the most engaged with the cooking process. Consequently, 56 % of all indoor air pollution-attributable deaths occur in children under five years old. (WHO Fact sheet N°292: Indoor Air Pollution and Health, 2005)
Health problems caused by indoor air pollution will also hold back economic development, thus creating a vicious cycle of poverty. It is the objective of the Halton Foundation to positively affect this development and support initiatives aiming at reducing the health problems and deaths caused by the cooking process.
Developed countries: indoor air pollution caused by contaminants from outside air
Studies indicate that the most significant cause of indoor air quality related health problems in developed countries is the contaminants from the outside air. Ambient air quality is three times more significant source of indoor air pollution than dampness, mould and water systems. Therefore, Halton Foundation aims to promote initiatives that are protecting people’s health by providing them cleaner air to breathe in indoor spaces for example by developing better ways of purifying the air coming from outside.
How to apply for Halton Foundation grants?
Halton Foundation is looking for new and innovative ways of solving indoor environmental problems. Therefore Halton Foundation welcomes grant applications for different kinds of undertakings supporting the Foundation’s mission.
The Foundation grants are either one-time grants for a specific purpose or multi-year grants for no longer than three years. The application period for the Halton Foundation grants is now open. A grant application can be filled out at Halton Group website http://www.halton.com/en_US/about/halton-foundation/applying-for-a-grant and applications must be submitted by latest on October 15, 2014. The selection process of the winning application will be completed by November 15th 2014.