SVP Melbourne supported Hands on Learning in collaboration with Newsboys Foundation.
Hands on Learning is a harm prevention charity – with DGR status – committed to preventing the harm of early school leaving. HOLA’s program is an innovative education program that caters to the different ways young people learn. Two artisan-teachers work collaboratively with small groups of cross-age students on authentic building projects that provide a platform for students to engage, grow confidence and achieve success at school.
SVP Melbourne assisted HOLA in their merger with Save the Children, enabling potential capacity for significant growth and impact.
Hands On Learning (HOL) were introduced to SVPM through Newsboys Foundation as a potential Investee candidate as part of SVPM’s Investment Committee process in 2015.
Whilst HOL weren’t the primary recipient of support from SVPM following that process, we engaged with Newsboys to arrange both financial support from Newsboys Foundation and Capability support from SVPM, commencing at the beginning of 2016.
HOL had a very stable and proven model of engaging disaffected kids at secondary school level in physical building and landscaping activities. This incursion exposed them to different types of group activities which enabled them to develop their relationship with their mentors and the other kids who were of similar situation. This type of program had a profound impact on these children’s life and learning journey.
SVPM’s focus was to examine opportunities considered by HOL to extend and expand their program model of intervention throughout Victoria. A team of SVPM partners worked with HOL executives to examine the proposed opportunities and work through those proposals to arrive at strategies for growth and sustainability. Consulting processes were developed with HOL to expand their reach with consequent success. In mid 2017, Save The Children sought to acquire HOL, and the SVPM focus switched to supporting HOL in the due diligence process. A successful merger of HOL into Save the Children was the end result, which delivered the desired strategic outcomes for HOL and Save the Children.
SVPM and Newsboys thereby ended what was a successful engagement.
