How will people in Africa benefit from my support?
Benefits of being a sponsor
Background and History
What have we achieved so far
Our plans

How will people in Africa benefit from my support?

By becoming a Village Volunteers supporter you will be contributing to the development of stronger national ICAs in eleven African countries. These organisations share the ICA approach and philosophy, and apply it at the community level in both rural and urban areas. Current activities of the different ICAs include:

As a Village Volunteer sponsor, you will:

• Receive a six monthly newsletter with contributions from the staff of African ICAs, providing a regular insight into what life is really like for the men and women working in African communities, the sort of programmes that are being implemented, and an overview of ICAs’ work in Africa

• Be secure in the knowledge that the money you donate will be used effectively by the ICAs in Africa for the benefit of the communities they work with. African ICAs seeking funds from Village Volunteers will need to submit a proposal detailing how the money will be spent, how their effectiveness will be enhanced and how the communities they are working with will benefit. Progress will be monitored and final reports will be published in the Newsletters.

• Know the cost of administering the scheme in the UK. As far as possible, this will be covered by the tax concessions we can claim. If this is insufficient, then we will tell you!

Be able to decide your own payment plan: We welcome all contributions: Large, small, regular, occasional, inkind....

Increase the value of your donation by over 20% at no extra cost: Providing you are a UK taxpayer, signing the Gift Aid Declaration will enable us to take advantage of Government tax concessions.

Background and History

In 2005 (it seems more than in most years) our TV screens have been filled with harrowing images of people suffering from both natural and man-made disasters: the tsunami, hurricanes, earthquakes, famine, war, displacement.

These events have been large and dramatic enough to attract the attention of the world’s media. People have been touched by the suffering they have seen, and have given generously towards trying to do something to help.

Not all challenges are as dramatic as these, however, and not all attract the same level of attention by the media. Longer term issues such as poverty, illiteracy, poor health, low levels of education and insufficient food continue to make life difficult for the majority of people in many parts of the world.

Development agencies in the U.K. and elsewhere have been working for many years to address these issues, and through them such issues do come occasionally into the public eye in the U.K. (during the coverage of the recent G8 meeting in Scotland, for example).

Behind the headlines, the reality of the situation and the efforts of local institutions to improve the lives of individuals and communities are often overlooked. Without these local agencies, most development work would not happen. Fewer and fewer international agencies implement programmes directly: they depend upon the local expertise and knowledge of their partner organisations. Ironically, however, often they do not invest sufficiently in these partners to enable them to develop and grow as organisations.

The Village Volunteers sponsorship scheme has been run by ICA in the UK since 1985. Started in Kenya due to personal and historic connections, the scheme links individual sponsors in the U.K. with staff members of ICA Kenya, providing funding for the development and growth of ICA Kenya and its staff, enabling them to both expand and improve their work with the rural and urban communities in Kenya.

Over the past twenty years ICA Kenya has been able to reach over one million people with programmes addressing issues of leadership, health (including HIV/AIDS), income generation (including provision of micro-credit) and sustainable agriculture. In addition, the scheme has brought Kenyan perspectives to inform the thinking of U.K. supporters.

While there have been changes over the past twenty years, the principles and priorities on which the scheme was originally established in 1985 remain as important and relevant today: the focus on linking people, the exchange of funding and information, the emphasis on enabling a national organisation to grow and develop.

What have we achieved so far?

Over the past 20 years, the Village Volunteers has been able to send regular donations, amounting to over £70,000 to ICA Kenya, contributing to the development of the staff, the development as an organisation and its effectiveness in serving communities. As Lydia Muthoka, a member of one of the communities that ICA Kenya is working with, says:

"In this community, we do appreciate the style and the way ICAK works. It is ICAK workshops and training where each person’s idea irrespective of his or her status is valued and appreciated. I think the greatest challenge for ICAK is how to train Government officials and the so called development experts to change their style and attitude of approach so that they start to value us as people who have wisdom, as people who have ideas and knowledge as opposed to the current attitude where some of them think that just because we are poor and disadvantaged we have 'blank heads'".

In addition to strengthening its approach, Village Volunteers has played a role in enabling ICA Kenya to broaden its range of activities in response to the demands of the communities. They can now offer training and support in income generation (including both training and credit), sustainable agriculture, leadership and group strengthening, and health (including HIV/AIDS, nutrition, water and sanitation), thus enabling people to obtain support and encouragement to improve their lives.

The past five years have also seen an increase in the level of support that ICA:UK has been able to offer the growing ICA network in Africa. Through its work, ICA:UK has been able to:

• Access around £750,000 worth of programme funding from U.K. donors such as Comic Relief, the Community Fund, Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund and the Baring Foundation for ICAs in Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya

• Provide programme management support and advice

• Provide training, ongoing advice and information for ICAs on fundraising skills and opportunities, trends in international development, organisational issues

• Link African ICAs with potential donors, supporters and clients
  
• Work with ICA staff from African ICAs in the delivery of facilitation and training services
  
• Provide trainers for courses organised by ICA Ghana and ICA Zimbabwe

Our Plans

Now we want to broaden the scheme to benefit more communities in sub-Saharan Africa, one of the areas of greatest need in our developing world, by involving more people in the U.K. and more ICAs in Africa, and we need your support.

We want to continue and expand our support for ICAs in Africa, by building up the Village Volunteers fund into a resource available to the ICAs for their development and growth, enabling them to continue and expand their community-based work using the approaches and methods developed and refined by ICA over the past forty years.

In building up the fund, we want to:

• Maintain the partnership nature of the scheme, including increasing levels of accountability between the UK and the ICAs in Africa
  
• Continue to promote the exchange of ideas and funding
  
• Play a role in strengthening local institutions so that they can best serve the communities they are working with
  
• Build on the progress that ICA:UK has been able to make through its support for ICAs in Africa
  
• Take advantage of the current world concern for African development and to contribute to the implementation of the recommendations from the recent Commission for Africa and to the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals.