Blog

Whilst AfriKids embark on a new era of even bigger change, we assure you that our principles remain unchanged. We will continue to be committed to the values that have always sat at the heart of what we do and we will continue to uphold these now and into the future. We guarantee that you can hold us to that.

So what are the principles and values that make AfriKids what it is?

We are truly local

Our team of local staff in Ghana design and run all of our life-changing programmes from start to finish. Qualified, experienced professionals, they have a deep, personal commitment to improving life for children in their communities.

Being known and trusted in the communities they work in is what makes them so effective, especially with some of our most complex work changing traditional beliefs. Whilst fundraising and due diligence is led from the UK, it is always with the aim of supporting local people delivering the right solutions in their own communities.

We listen

Our programmes are developed by listening to what local people tell us they really need. Our exceptional stakeholder consultation gives every level of society a say on what we do and gives us a clear view on what the government and other actors are doing. This ensures our projects are always truly needed, wanted and bought into by everyone it takes to make it work.

We empower

Our approach is always to help children, families and communities help themselves. Our projects bring people together, equip them with knowledge and show them how to make and demand the changes needed for all children to have a better life in northern Ghana. 

We sustain

If it’s not sustainable, it’s not development. For us this means two things:

Addressing the root causes of issues as well as the symptoms

As well as providing direct support to children at risk now, we are also improving the education, child protection and healthcare systems of northern Ghana. To stop suffering in the first place and improve every child’s start in life.

Creating changes that are sustainable without ongoing aid

All of our projects create change by educating local people and empowering them to make changes themselves. This way the changes we help make with each new project become permanently embedded and continue to benefit children long after our involvement ends. While there is a lot of work to be done and making permanent changes takes time, our projects will evolve and move, and rather than create dependence on us, they enable change to be sustained.

This is how we are helping people secure better futures for children that ultimately don’t rely on aid.

We respect people and planet

We work together with communities to end harmful traditional practices and protect children, while respecting local culture, heritage and environment.

We are conscious to minimise the impact of our operations on the environment and employ a ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ approach.

We always want to do better

An ethos of learning and improving is ingrained in everything we do, from supporting training for all our staff, to continuously developing our Monitoring, Evaluations and Learning tools to measure our impact and inform our strategy. We encourage feedback from all of our stakeholders which helps us to continue learning and adapting.

This ethos means we are always building on what we have achieved and learned so we can go further. As we move in to a new phase of growth, we are now in a position to take on the next levels of change because of what we’ve learnt.

In our next blog we will explain what we have learnt and explore how this will impact our work going forward.