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When Georgie Fienberg vis-ited Ghana on a gap year almost fifteen years ago, she couldn’t have known the

impact it would have on the rest of her life. Not just hers, but those of thousands of children in northern Ghana whose lives she would touch through the work of the charity she would create. Now, fifteen years later, AfriKids is a salvation for many young people who would otherwise be living without hope.

Fienberg started AfriKids, a child rights organisation based in Ghana’s Upper East Region, in 2002. Inspired by the resource-fulness of those she met while travelling

around the country, she felt compelled to do something. Contrary to the images shown on television of helpless natives, Fienberg found a creative and determined people who were making the best out of difficult circumstances.

Rather than go in and tell them how to do things, Fienberg worked with local people to support them in what they were already doing and knew needed to be done. In the process, she created an organisation which now employs 160 local staff in Ghana with just a small, supporting team of ten in London.

What distinguishes AfriKids from other development charities is its approach. It works to solve the root causes of children being denied their rights by improving community support services and ensur-

Ten years and thousands of child beneficiaries later, we report on a unique British charity whose aim is to put itself out of business.

Sylvia Arthur

Civil Society on the Move

Giving help and hope to children in need

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Our Planet

getting on a bus to go south to Kumasi. He was really shocked by it. In that case, they were economic migrants but there was an undertone of people taking these children down as well, a mix of trafficking and economic migration,” says Thornton. “He went down to Kumasi to follow up with contacts there, where these children were ending up in slums at an old, colonial racecourse. They were living in container boxes, end to end, huge numbers of peo-ple in appalling squalor. And he realised that some of it needed to be dealt with in a local way but, from a distance of 600 kilometres, it’s a very difficult thing for local people to do.”

Public-private partnership

In response to this dilemma, AfriKids set up a number of core projects to tackle the bigger issues, and joined with partners already running effective projects to max-imise the impact of their work. The charity is also focused on developing major social enterprises designed to financially sustain the running of the Ghana operation, while creating and enhancing local opportunities and supporting wider economic growth.

“We’ve been working with the Ghana team to identify, fund and run social enterprises in Ghana, the largest of these being our hospital,” says Thornton. “When we took over the AfriKids Medical Centre, it was seeing 5,000 patients a year. Now, with a public-private partnership with the Ghana

Health Service we see 60,000 patients a year and made £100,000 profit last year.” Revenue from the medical centre alone pays for the salaries of three quarters of AfriKids’ Ghana staff, of which 60 are healthcare workers at the centre.

Sustainability

The next phase in AfriKids development is the building of an Eco Lodge. It will employ 30-50 local people in the tour-ism industry and generate £180,000 annual profit, enough to fund one third of AfriKids’ work. This will be achieved by providing on-the-job training in new vocations, by providing long-term employ-ment and by bringing new revenue streams into the region.

Next year, AfriKids celebrates its tenth anniversary. The organisation’s ultimate goal is not to celebrate another ten. It wants to close its UK office by 2018, as a result of the Ghana operation becoming self-sustaining. And if any charity can do it, it’s AfriKids. “AfriKids Ghana was always very clear that they wanted our projects to be sustainable for the beneficiaries. As an organisation, our Ghana team saw so many good organisations in their community fall victim to the vagaries of western funding. They didn’t want that. They were aware of some of the limitations of western funding and they wanted to continue their work in a locally appropriate way,” says Thornton. “We’ve defined a very clear goal for our organisation. This is very much our USP.”

To find out more about AfriKids please visit www.afrikids.org

ing access to basic education and primary health care.

“Our mission has always centred on chil-dren,” says Andy Thornton, Director of AfriKids UK. “We recognise that, in order to change the lives of children, you have to work with all of the surrounding factors. So we work very inclusively and holistically.”

Tackling child trafficking

AfriKids runs a number of projects. Its reach ranges from more traditional initia-tives, including foster homes, schools and street child centres to ground-breaking projects which tackle complex cultural issues including child trafficking, child labour and the spirit child phenomenon. Working with the indigenous communities is key to the success of their work.

The story of how AfriKids recruited its Ghana Director, Nich Kumah, is typical of the way in which the organisation engages, cultivates and retains its staff. Kumah was a member of a local church group who, along with two friends, had converted a public toilet into a home for street children. It was through his hands-on activism that he came to the attention of AfriKids, and it is this appreciation of local knowledge that has enabled the charity to have such a big impact.

“Nich was in a lorry park one Sunday when he saw young, unaccompanied children

AfriKids Ghana Director, Nich Kumah © AfriKids

One of the 60,000 patients receiving care annually at the AfriKids Medical Centre © AfriKids

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