United Purpose

Our world is facing an unprecedented number of global crises. As we commemorate World Humanitarian Day today, it is estimated that close to 300 million people will require humanitarian assistance in 2024.

Today we join the call to - we pay tribute to humanitarian workers all over the world, and call for their protection in conflict zones.

Have you heard of Mbeya manure?

This homemade manure reduces the amount of fertiliser needed and increases crop yields.

Learn more 👇

Today is an opportunity to recognise and celebrate all the fathers who work to create a better future for their families.

Happy Father's Day to all the fantastic dads we work with every day across Africa.

Our work with farming families helps mothers and fathers to earn more income and provide the best possible future for their children. 💚

📸
Ndiene and his child, Senegal (photo by jason florio - photojournalist/writer/artist )
Robert with his family, Malawi
Madi and family, Burkina Faso

Did you know that up to 40 per cent of the planet’s land is degraded? Although degraded lands have lost some natural productivity, these lands still hold environmental and economic value.

Today is World Environment Day with the theme 'Our Land. Our Future' focusing on land restoration and halting desertification and drought. 🌍

At Self Help Africa & United Purpose, today and every day, we’re committed to the objectives of World Environment Day and protecting our precious planet. Regenerative agriculture, restoration and reforestation efforts are at the core of our work with small-scale farming communities in Africa. 🌿 🌊

Read more:

World Environment Day 2024 - Our Land, Our Future The World Environment Day 2024 theme is ‘Our Land, Our Future’. The focus is on land restoration, drought and desertification.

Today's the International Day of Potato - a day to celebrate this humble but important food crop.

A versatile crop that can be grown in different climatic conditions and different soils, it's also highly effective as a ground cover crop whose dense canopy of foliage can shade the earth from direct sunlight, and thus retain moisture in the soil.

The Irish potato and orange sweet potato crops are also valuable sources of nutrition and can be an important part of the household diet.

United Purpose is working in Mozambique while our sister organisation Self Help Africa is working with Action on Poverty in Malawi and with Vita Ireland in Ethiopia to increase farmer access to quality seed and training in potato production.

Families today face major challenges in the face of a cost of living and climate crises. Climate change and extreme weather events often lead to displacement of families and loss of livelihoods.

At Self Help Africa & United Purpose, a crucial element of our work is supporting farming families to adapt to and mitigate the effects of global warming while producing enough food to earn a living. 🌱

Today is International Day of Families with the theme: "Families and Climate Change." 🌍 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦

We must continue to combat, and adapt to, climate change through education, climate-smart agriculture practices and instilling sustainable habits within families from an early age.

📸 Adera with her children, Malawi.

📣 Join us on Zoom tomorrow, 9 May at 10am for a very special online event: The launch of our WASH Systems for Health Programme & our 25th anniversary of working in Nigeria!

Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMoc-uhrz8uGdROii8Sob8sblpc2FI5lwhe

Eid Mubarak to our Muslim supporters, colleagues and all those celebrating Eid al-Fitr in the communities we work and beyond.

Wishing you a peaceful and loving celebration.

Pictured: Our wonderful colleague Jankey in The Gambia

We'd like to wish a peaceful and happy Easter to all of our supporters who celebrate the occasion.

Why not donate an egg-cellent gift like a flock of chickens? Their eggs provide an important source of protein and surplus eggs can be sold.

This, and other items from our shop, support farming families in sub-Saharan Africa with the tools needed to lift them out of poverty.

Buy now: https://buff.ly/3VHSUE1

📸 Wendani Women's Group, Kenya

“I’m so happy that Self Help Africa equipped us with skills in backyard gardening. I started with a small garden, but am now growing more vegetables using sacks and my family is growing stronger and happier."

Mikilina Kangachepe lives with her four children on a remote hillside village in southern Malawi. Life has not been easy for Mikilina but it has improved since using an innovative ‘sack gardening’ technique using raised sacks containers of soil to grow tomatoes, cabbage, sweet potatoes and more in her backyard. 🌱 🍠

She is among 130 local women we are supporting with sack gardens, introduced as part of Self Help Africa & United Purpose's Women’s Food Security Project in southern Malawi.

Read more:

Bountiful backyard sack gardens Gardens in a sack are providing women in Malawi with a chance to grow more food and provide better nutrition to their families

Women are incredible, aren't they?

Did you know women produce around 70% of the food in Africa? Women are crucial to every community we work with at Self Help Africa & United Purpose.

Right now, women still face far too many barriers to success and equality.

That's why this International Women's Day, we're celebrating the theme: "Invest in women: Accelerate progress".

At Self Help Africa & United Purpose, we're proud to be working to level the gender field and provide women with the opportunities they need and deserve to progress and realise their potential. ♀ 🌍

Because by investing in women, we're also investing in their communities, families and futures. What's not to celebrate? Happy International Women's Day! 🎉

Read more: https://bit.ly/3TrfZcd

Pictured: Uwezo Women's Group, Nancy Wanjiku, Sofie Sarjo, Phales Sichibeka

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we’re hosting a webinar on this year’s theme – ‘Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress’ at 1pm GMT on Thursday March 7th. ♀🌍

Join our international all-women panel featuring guest contributors from Sweden, The Gambia, Nigeria and Zambia – as they share their unique perspectives, experiences and approaches to supporting other women and their communities.

Register here + more info: https://buff.ly/3Ikk77O

We're delighted to partner with Waitrose & Partners to support farm workers and empower communities in The Gambia!

Land donated by Radville Farm – one of the country’s largest fruit and vegetable exporters - was used to build a school in 2016 which is providing local children in Nemakunku with opportunities for education and growth. School attendance has increased significantly as a result.

We work with Radville Farm and three more farms in neighbouring Senegal, supporting community-led projects funded by Waitrose Foundation. When customers buy fresh produce from Waitrose sourced from these farms, two percent of the sale value is reinvested in projects that address challenges within their workers’ communities.

Read more:

Gambia's farm workers team with Waitrose Gambia farm staff work with Waitrose to transform their communitiesOff a main road in The Gambia’s urban Nemakunku area, hundreds of children in crisp green uniforms file through the gates of Nemakunku Radville School. The three-storey building was built in 2016 on land donated by Radville Farm .....

In Nigeria, children under the age of five die every day from preventable causes. Nearly half of those children do not have their birth registered.

But a door-to-door birth registration programme that we established with UNICEF Nigeria as part of the ‘Child-friendly Community Initiative’, is working to register the birth certificates of most of the children in Cross River State, southern Nigeria.

This will provide children with the right to access to state services, healthcare and a more certain future.

Read more:

Birth certificate service supports Nigeria’s ‘invisible’ children A birth registration programme with UNICEF supports Nigeria's invisible children to face a more certain future.

Wetlands play a crucial role in the planet's health by providing essential freshwater, contributing significantly to global food production, sustaining an abundance of marine life and storing more carbon than any other ecosystem.

Today is World Wetlands Day and the 2024 theme, "Wetlands and Human Wellbeing", is about the connection between wetlands and human health. 🌿 🌍

However, wetlands are under threat due to climate change and are disappearing at an alarming rate. At Self Help Africa & United Purpose, we're leading efforts to protect and enhance mangrove ecosystems in Senegal and The Gambia.

Access to electricity is one of the greatest barriers to development and social mobility in Africa, especially in rural areas. Around 43% of Africans live without electricity.

Today is International Day of Clean Energy. Access to renewable power sources reduces emissions while advancing education, healthcare, and economic opportunities. Clean energy will be vital to get more of Africa on the grid. 🌍 ⚡
️
Self Help Africa & United Purpose has installed Malawi’s first smart-metered, solar-powered mini-grids in a pilot project that has brought electricity to over 500 people in two remote villages. 🔆 🔌

Read more:

Lighting The Path to Progress: Bringing Solar Power to Rural Malawi Self Help Africa has installed Malawi’s first smart-metered, solar-powered mini-grids in a project bringing electricity to two rural villages

All of us at Self Help Africa and United Purpose would like to wish our supporters around the world a happy and peaceful Christmas. 🎄💚

Thank you for your continued support.

Our best-selling gift from our sister organisation Self Help Africa can help a whole community to thrive.

A goat can help a family to improve their farm, their income and their future! 🐐🙌🏼

Goats provide nutritious milk, and manure can be used as a natural fertiliser for the soil. Your gift keeps on giving, because the first kids can be passed-on to families in the local community.

Buy a Christmas Gift that’s the GOAT: (IE/Rest of world)

Goat Goats provide nutritious milk for an entire family, and the manure can be used as a natural fertiliser for the soil. They can be sold to generate an income.

This Christmas, give the gift of a future through our sister organisation

By purchasing a gift from the online shop you can transform people's lives. Find out more here:https://buff.ly/3mBLcpV

At Self Help Africa & United Purpose, we support farming families so that parents can provide their children with a brighter future.

Today is World Children's Day with the theme: 'For every child, every right.'

It's an opportunity to promote and advance the rights, education and opportunities of children so that they can reach their full potential. 💫

📸 Jessy Sade with her son, Umani Sade - Malawi

Today, on , we join calls for world leaders to keep their promise to ensure safe toilets for all by 2030. For decades, we've worked with local communities to build more than 1 million latrines. But we know improving sanitation and hygiene in the long term takes more than just building toilets.

That's why we take a people-centred and creative approach to encourage behaviour change wherever we work. We help communities identify and solve their own sanitation problems. And we use sports, music and ICT to share messages about sanitation and hygiene.

We need to ensure any change is sustainable, and any rise in demand for better water, sanitation & hygiene (WASH) products can be met - so we're also developing sanitation and WASH markets locally and working with government and private service providers.

📸 - jason florio - photojournalist/writer/artist

Wow. A huge thanks to Be One and its supporters for making the 10 community gardens we work with in The Gambia the focus of your September campaign. The £3,776 you've raised will help us put the finishing touches to the gardens with irrigation for targeted, consistent watering. This helps ensure there will be enough food produced to sustain the 1,170 women farmers' families and some left over to sell on for income.

September 2023 | Be One We’ve got some fantastic news to share with you this month and it’s all thanks to your generosity and commitment to making a positive impact. Your donations are currently hard at work sprucing-up 10 community gardens in The Gambia with irrigation that will ensure the female teams behind them hav...

After attending business management training through Tekki Jiggen, Mbene Gueye was so inspired by what she had learned that she shared her new-found knowledge with other women in her community before starting a new venture.

Mbene had attended an accounting training session, during which she learned about financial management and account keeping as well as how to start a new business, including identifying demand and a target customer base.

“After the training, I in turn trained other women – five of whom I chose to work with in a new business manufacturing and selling cleaning products,” she said.

“We each contributed capital to get started and now we're making soap and bleach. We've been working on this for a while and with our savings we've even bought clothes for each of the ladies for our religious event.”

Having access to clean water is something that many of us take for granted.
People living in the village of Nyankhwanya, Malawi, were forced to endure two long and difficult months without access to a clean water source, when their borehole stopped functioning.

During this time, Hendrina and her fellow residents were forced to fetch water from shallow wells and swamps out of desperation.

In January, Self Help Africa & United Purpose rehabilitated the broken borehole. “What a relief. The two months’ period that we had no water made me realise that we should not take water for granted. Thank you for fixing the lives of 100 people” said Hendrina.

Learn more about our WASH work: https://buff.ly/48sGkwe