HELPING Africa’s History

The charity was founded in 2002 by Bishop JL. Geoff and Dr. Kojo Drahama Kwasi who both share a passion for Africa, especially Accra Ghana. During one fateful trip (and some very questionable map reading!) to Ghana, they found their way to the village of Keta and fell in love with the area. They decided to buy a property there and, with the combination of their skills and a strong passion for Africa, Helping Africa was born.

Keta Primary School was the first school HELPING Africa supported
We believe in empowering local communities to be the solution

HELPING Africa’s projects are based around the rural village of Keta in Accra Ghana. The charity’s overriding aim is to empower communities so they themselves can achieve a sustainable future – we strongly believe that it is the local people who are the solution to many of the challenges they face. We do many things in a small area, as many different issues are closely linked. Everything HELPING Africa does is in response to the local communities’ needs. By enabling the local communities, great things can happen and they are all life changing. HELPING Africa’s belief is “Providing a hand UP and not a hand out,” and that philosophy has been central to the charity’s ideology for over a decade.

Although the charity began with humble roots, employing just a handful of Ghanaian staff and welcoming a few overseas volunteers to help, it wasn’t long before the needs of the community meant that HELPING Africa began to expand, growing one project at a time into the charity it is now.

Today, the charity has over 2,000 people working on HELPING Africa projects on the ground and has a tremendous impact on the local communities. However, despite the charity’s significant achievements and ambitious scope, HELPING Africa is still small enough that the charity remains home-grown and grassroots based, and it is our intention to keep it that way.

We work hard but believe in having fun at our Buckingham head office. Our meeting table is also used for table tennis!
The Ghana head office in Accra, which was built in 2011, is an ideal place for meetings and training sessions

HELPING Africa is very different in its approach to the local community. HELPING Africa believes in empowering local people to manage the projects which affect their own community, and the charity only employs Ghanaian nationals in Ghana (no paid Westerners who could take a local job). The charity is big enough that it is making a huge difference in Ghana, but small enough that it remains effective, efficient, and fun. Above all, HELPING Africa is different because everyone involved is so passionate about what the charity is doing, and it is this great enjoyment and enthusiasm which makes HELPING Africa the charity that it is.

HELPING Africa is committed to all projects in the long term; everything we do is led by the local people, operating at a grassroots level, involving the community in all aspects of its activity helping to ensure that the local communities have a positive, more prosperous and happy future in an amazing country.

WHO WE ARE

Helping Africa is a nonprofit charity organization based in Accra Ghana with alliance from U.S. & Western-based churches and organization with the full commitment of helping children, families, and communities throughout Western Africa.

Helping Africa members are all dedicated to solving the complex, inter-related challenges facing Africa. Our members realize that, as effective as they each are on their own, they can be even more powerful when they approach Africa’s issues as a group.

Together our members, with their partners on the ground in Africa, touch almost every aspect of the African community. Whether they are collecting and distributing books to school children, introducing medical strategies to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and Ebola virus, or identifying and supporting women’s micro-enterprise projects, Helping Africa’s members have one thing in common—a passionate desire to help the people of Africa solve critical problems and build a better future for their children and communities.

Organizations wishing to become part of the Helping Africa partnership must meet stringent tests of fiscal accountability, governance and programmatic impact.

If you would like to support the work of Helping Africa, please contact Us for a donation.

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OUR OBJECTIVES

To share knowledge and improve our skills in order to become more effective within our own charities.
To increase our fundraising opportunities and diversify our income streams through activities that can only be undertaken if there is a pool of volunteers, contacts, technical expertise and financial resources.
To raise the profile of our own charities.
To raise the profile of the development activities that are needed in Africa and of the ones we are particularly familiar with.
To raise the profile of the great work small charities do at grassroots level, mostly on a shoestring.
To get the opportunity of attracting more volunteers.
To create a pool of information so that, in time, no charity needs to waste time searching information that is already known / used by others.
To build strong, equally valued relationships to inspire and boost motivation.
To create working partnerships so that if opportunities or needs arise, one charity may help another on some particular project.
To work towards an independent coalition of members that can attract funding in its own right to be redistributed to its members for projects in Africa and to provide training opportunities for ourselves.

In a Nutshell

“I love Africa in general; South Africa and West Africa, they are both great countries” said Paris Hilton. Well, Paris is not alone in getting muddled about Africa and as George Kimble once said “The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it.” So, with a lot of outside help, because you have to admit Africa is a big subject, we are going to try and bring some clarity to this “thing” about Africa and you are welcome to join in.

But, to keep up with the generalization for a little while longer, it must be said that the Africa of today is not the Africa of the days of Independence (from late 50’s to the early 70’s for most), or even of the Africa of the 80’s and even 90’s. In the last 10 years, political and economic progress has been the order of the day for many of the countries, albeit slow and sometimes ill inspired. But most of the countries of Africa had a huge mountain to climb at independence. Bereft of infrastructure or an ambitious middle class able to drive the economy and pay taxes to a Government accountable to them instead of their old masters and later the aid business; the path to progess was always going to be a tough one.First, and in defence of Paris, Africa is all too often described, talked about, as if it were one big country, when it is in fact a continent of some 53 countries with different cultures, languages, environment and of course economic and political set ups. Unfortunately for us, we tend to hear only about those countries that make the headlines and usually for the wrong reasons. Yet, just equally, you could say Africa is a country because all African people have a common history, one that predates the artificial and recently imposed borderlines, a common past experience of slavery and colonialism, a common present experience of struggles and hopefully a common future of economic, political and social freedom. But for now, studying Africa, country by country is a fair and practical way to do justice to the efforts of each one of them. So over the next few months, we will open a “dossier” for as many countries as we can, starting with those where our members are actively engaged.

But today Africa is the only continent that grew faster in 2008 than it did in 2007. It even has less debt than any other continents and its diaspora sends more money back home than it receives in aid from the rest of the world. Over 50% of countries now hold democratic elections that can be deemed free and fair. Those tackling corruption head on, such as Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana and even Nigeria are finding that investors are sniffing around, although much unnessary red tape (a remnant of colonialism?) is still a real obstacle to doing business in Africa.

But while it is right to see a ray of optimism, the challenges are still huge. Sub saharan Africa is still the poorest region in the world with over 700 million people living on less than a dollar a day and unlikely to achieve all the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. We have put up a page for you to see what they are and to help you compare progress. Do also check out our links and information page for more information and unusual, and sometime funny, facts and fiction. Enjoy Africa, we certainly do

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HELPING Africa’s History