About The Nehemiah Project
What does it do?
- Provides homes for the homeless with space to help 100 homeless men a year, across three houses
- Brings freedom to the addicted with a unique and intense programme of rehabilitation. Through teaching, group work and counselling the Project enables individuals to examine every aspect of their lives and work through the process of healing
- Runs a small landscaping business that trains and employs men in its homes. The men develop good work skills enabling them to go on to other employment or further studies.
All money raised goes directly to supporting some of the most vulnerable individuals in our society, to help them find freedom from their addictions, and to re-integrate back into society.
The Vision
It is the vision at the Nehemiah Project to enable addicts to find real and lasting change in their lives, and to deal with the underlying causes of their problems.
The charity aims to see each person as an individual, and help them find stability as they return to the community.
Each person helped also impacts on their family and friends, and helps to make a difference to the growing problem of substance abuse in our society. This is exciting and important work with a lot of potential for the future.
The Work
1. Safe Accommodation Providing:
- homes where people feel welcome...
The Project’s properties are designed to be homes not houses. Each is furnished and decorated so that it is warm, clean and comfortable, and can provide residents with the type of safe ‘home’ that most have never experienced.
- communities where people find belonging...
From the start, each individual shares in household duties and in the operation of the home. Over time, every resident learns new skills and takes on more responsibility in the community, growing in confidence as they do so.
- places where people can change...
The homes give residents the space to reflect on their lives and to be honest about their struggles. They all have clear boundaries and disciplines that enable residents to receive feedback on their behaviour and to develop within a structured and secure context.
2. Effective Rehabilitation Programme to enable residents to:
- find freedom from emotional pain...
Addicts use drugs to avoid emotional pain. This uniquely therapeutic programme of education and group work enables individuals to understand why they use drugs and to stop doing so by overcoming the hurt and fear from the past.
- get right with God...
The Nehemiah Project is a Christian mission, and enabling individuals to get right with God is central to the programme. Through relationship with Jesus, residents find freedom from past hurts and forgiveness for the things they have done.
- break destructive behaviour patterns...
Because of the difficult lives many residents have led they develop bad habits in order to survive. Lying, stealing, aggression, or manipulation become ways of life and the programme challenges them to change and find new ways.
- regain good physical health...
Many residents are in very poor health. The project works with local doctors, hospitals and dentists to help individuals regain their health. Residents each have a Care Plan and specialist mental health referrals are made when necessary.
Vocational Training to:
- provide a new start...
Frequently, those who come to the Project have little work experience and many have never worked a day in their lives. Often they have been involved in crime from young ages, have dropped out of education and spent many years in prison. At the Project, they start the rebuilding of their skills.
- prepare for life after completing rehabilitation...
Finding work after completing rehabilitation is a critical part of an individual’s ongoing recovery and many of those who fail do so because of unemployment. It is therefore the aim to enable men to develop relevant vocational skills so that they can find work when they leave rehabilitation.
Our history
In 1990, Wendell and Lois Smith came to England from America to help broken people get their lives sorted out.
As missionaries they were responding to the Lord’s call and it was this which motivated them to establish the Nehemiah Project as a registered charity.
Their first year in London was spent helping those in need on the streets of Earl’s Court. During this time they saw, first hand, the chronic drug and alcohol problems with which so many individuals struggle.
They also realised that to help addicts make lasting changes in their lives would require more than simply providing short-term aid or accommodation.
They needed to provide safe and disciplined homes where broken individuals could live for an extended period of time while they dealt with the root causes of their problems such as family breakdown, addiction, poverty or unemployment.
Today the Nehemiah Project operates three such homes and can minister to around twenty-five addicts at any one time.
The charity’s objective remains the same - to enable individuals to overcome their addictions by showing them the love of Christ, helping them to find freedom from the emotional and behavioural bonds of the past.