A groundbreaking rehabilitation and support service for people with chronic conditions is celebrating a successful grant application from the National Lottery Community Fund of £10,000.

Muddy Care CIC, a community interest company based in Talgarth, received the green light last week for the funding, which has been earmarked for a number of projects to help people across the country.

The five-figure sum will be used to provide a new online health and wellness service, as well as wild walking and educational workshop for people with chronic conditions including long COVID-19, across Wales.

Muddy Care is managed by a professional outdoor education specialist who has several serious chronic conditions herself, and has dedicated the last nine years of her life to researching health and wellness from a chronic condition perspective. The rehabilitation focuses holistically on all aspects of health and wellbeing, such as physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, environmental and social.

The rehabilitation services offered by Muddy Care are delivered by specialist outdoor education teachers, who have exemplary experience in both health and wellness, as well as outdoor education.

One of Muddy Care’s participants explained what the programme meant to them:

“Muddy Care has given me so much more confidence in my physical resilience and taught me not to underestimate my capabilities. I am learning how best to improve them, without over doing it. I appreciate the scheme so much and am enjoying it immensely.

“I can see it going from strength to strength as it provides a service almost entirely lacking in our society, and for a marginalised, forgotten and dismissed strata of the population - but one into whose clutches any single human can fall with no notice or apology.”

Muddy Care is a not-for-profit organisation which means all their profit goes into research and providing support and services for the community.

This new lottery grant will let Muddy Care start webinar and podcasts services this Autumn.

Each month they plan to discuss a particular health and wellness topic through this service with education, health and medical professionals, as well as inspirational people with chronic conditions and organisations who work with this community. This will help people with long term and chronic health conditions - including Long COVID-19 - to improve their knowledge, skills and understanding of how to live well in spite of the challenges they face.

They will also deliver an outdoor education health and wellness programme, specifically for the sector of their community classified as extremely clinically vulnerable. This will start on the Gower, Swansea.

John Rose, Wales Director of The National Lottery Community Fund, said:

“Like Muddy Care’s funding, the vast majority (83%) of our grants are for under £10,000.

“Over £36 million a week is raised by National Lottery players for good causes. The grants go to grassroots groups and charities across the UK bringing to life amazing ideas that matter to their communities.

“We are looking forward to seeing how Muddy Care use the grant to work with the community of people with chronic health conditions and long COVID-19 to engage in the activities that matter to them.”