Blog

Since the COVID-19 pandemic turned our shared world upside down, we have been working hard to continue supporting vulnerable children and families in northern Ghana, whose lives have become even tougher. We are also serving on the frontline of prevention efforts, issuing guidance and supplies for people to stay safe. We are so grateful to everyone who is supporting us during this time and making all of this possible.

All of our projects have been affected and fundraising has become incredibly tough, with around £400,000 already knocked off our forecast for this year due to disruption like sponsored challenges and events being cancelled, corporate and private funding under threat and delays and changes to grant funding decisions.

While we navigate this hopefully short-term crisis, our priority - as always - is the vulnerable children we exist to support; ensuring we can be there long-term to keep them healthy, safe and in school.

To help ensure AfriKids survives and will thrive in the future, we have made the difficult decision to “hibernate” AfriKids UK, furloughing all of our eligible UK staff and retaining them via the support of the UK government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. We envision it will work as follows:

• 10th – 30th June:      AfriKids UK will be closed, with most staff furloughed (not working).
• 1st July onwards:      We hope to reopen AfriKids UK, at least in part from 1st July, and gradually return to normal as soon as possible. We will be back in touch with supporters from this point, when we are permitted to work again under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

AfriKids Ghana will continue to operate, delivering our projects and services in Ghana as far as possible during this time.

As soon as matters change, we will issue further updates, but for now we would like to sincerely thank all of our staff and supporters, all over the world, for everything you are doing to help get us through this.

We look forward to seeing you all on the other side.

Charlie Hay | CEO | AfriKids UK

Nich Kumah | Country Director | AfriKids Ghana

Enquiries 

If you need to get in touch with us regarding something urgent or critical during this time, please email urgent@afrikids.org