20/20 Vision

Our fundraising campaign to mark the 20th anniversary of the Africa Foundation

In 1991, Conservation Corporation Africa (CC Africa) was establishing one of Africa’s most exciting new game reserves at Phinda in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. This extraordinary project to reclaim a collection of old, worked-out pineapple farms and tribal land, transform it into a wilderness wonderland with seven different ecosystems and all the endemic animals that had roamed the countryside before the arrival of man, could not have happened without Africa Foundation.

By Susannah Friend, Fundraising Director

In 2011, Africa Foundation UK will mark the Foundation’s 20^th Anniversary with a special 20/20 Vision fundraising campaign to enable us to take our efforts and the good that we do to a whole new level.

Our vision now is to empower more communities by scaling up what we know works - community by community, rather than project by project. In future we will address all the priority needs in a community at the same time, rather than picking them off piecemeal as we have been doing to date.

In the immediate future, we have identified 22 communities which urgently need projects to begin; and some 80,000 lives we can change in the next five years.

All it takes is more funding, and to do this we need to raise £10million over the next five years.

For some 19 years now, with the support of effective eco-tourism, we have been lifting people living in rural African wilderness areas out of poverty, bringing hope and building aspiration in the communities where it is needed most.

We fund projects and leave legacies in education, healthcare and income generation, developing essential infrastructures and adding value for some 26 communities – 12 in South Africa, 11 in Tanzania and three in Kenya. Over the past 19 years we have raised money and facilitated schools, clinics, and day-care centres for orphaned and vulnerable children, access to fresh water, and university scholarships for aspiring community leaders, and we have helped breathe life into local businesses.

As a result, we have made a real difference in people’s lives. We have helped to provide access to education and healthcare for more than 120,000 children, provided access to water for some 85,000 people, and supported hundreds of small entrepreneurs with market gardening, business advisory and computer services.

We have developed and refined a highly successful model by:

 

• Partnering with ecotourism, the most effective industry in rural Africa, which provides essential logistics such as air strips, roads, vehicles and vital manpower
• Consulting with community leaders, working with local champions and using local suppliers
• Partnering with government and other stakeholders
• And ensuring sustainability

Over the last 19 years we have become known internationally for funding effective, sustainable initiatives that have changed people’s lives. But we want to do more. And our 20th Anniversary in 2011 is the moment to look forward and to re-define our vision for the next 20 years.

We believe that we now have a unique opportunity, because our donors and supporters have told us that what they like about The Africa Foundation is that we are:

• small but highly focussed

• directly connected to the communities we serve - enabling us to put donor funds to work in the   field within just weeks, and

• very accessible – as they can visit the projects, talk to the amazing people involved, and witness first-hand the successes we achieve.

So we more than meet the expectations of our donors and supporters - we inspire them!

And we have the experience and the know-how to enable us to do more.

Please click here to view our 20/20 Vision Fundraising Appeal presentation and the schedule of projects we have identified for funding over the next five years.

Through our links with eco-tourism and our Travel for a Cause accommodation package, we are able to offer our supporters attractive opportunities to visit our projects and see for themselves the good that we do - and at the same time to experience the wonderful wilderness areas and wildlife parks where we operate. Just by travelling with us, you will be contributing to Africa Foundation, and should you elect on your return to make a donation to support our work, we would be delighted to facilitate this on a tax-efficient basis.  If you are interested in finding out first hand where we operate and what we do, click here.

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