Who funds our work?

In 2006-7, about half of our income was core funding from the UK government's Department for International Development. We also receive over £45,000 per year from individual donations and our workplace partners. In addition to these sources of income, every year we receive funding for specific projects from donor organisations such as the Big Lottery Fund and smaller charitable trusts. This page tells you more about these funded projects in Southern Africa, East Africa, Asia and Europe.

Southern Africa

Socio-economic Empowerment of the Basarwa/San (Botswana), April 2002 - March 2009

The Basarwa/San are an indigenous population of Botswana who are historically hunter-gatherers. Displacement from their traditional lands through the growth of game reserves and political marginalisation has meant that the majority of Basarwa/San have been unable to sustain their traditional livelihoods. As a result, they now have the highest levels of poverty, unemployment, sexually transmitted infections and alcoholism in Botswana, coupled with the lowest levels of literacy.  This project, which has more than 100 members, focuses specifically on the Basarwa/San who occupy the Kang region of Botswana. Skillshare International is working with a local non-governmental organisation, Tqui Xu Yani (TXY), to provide opportunities for social and economic development for these communities.
 
Partners: TXY
Funded by: Comic Relief

Botswana Rural Livelihoods, February 2007 - October 2009

Skillshare International is working with eight local partners to support the livelihoods of the poorest and most marginalised people in Botswana.  The project aims to:

• Build the capacity of partner organisations to improve their service delivery to people in West and North West Botswana.
• Support the creation of employment and income generation opportunities through new business ventures in tourism and vocational training.
• Raise awareness about the rights of minority and disadvantaged groups in remote areas of Botswana.
• Ensure that HIV and AIDS awareness is integrated into all aspects of the project work.

Partners: Okavango Brigade Development Trust, Gantsi Brigade Development Trust, Letloa, Matsheng Brigade Development Trust, Permaculture Trust Botswana, TXY, Okavango Polers Trust, Kang Brigade Development Trust.
Funded By: The European Commission

Human Rights, Public Education & Capacity Building (Botswana)

The aim of this project is to contribute towards the future creation of a human rights culture in Botswana, in which:

• The general population is aware of what human rights are, and understands and supports the rights of those who are different from themselves.
• The public hears about human rights violations and puts pressure on the government and/or perpetrators to redress the violation.
• Everyone understands their rights and is aware of ways to protect their rights, such as forms of affordable legal assistance.
• Everyone has the confidence and skills to be able to stand up for their rights.

Achieving this aim would mean achieving gender equality, children's rights, respect for the rights of those infected and affected by HIV and AIDS, equality for ethnic minorities and the disabled. 

Partner : DITSHWANELO - The Botswana Centre for Human Rights
Funding:  Irish Aid

Fighting Discrimination against People with Disabilities in Remote Areas of Lesotho, June 2002 - May 2008

The aim of this project is to reduce discrimination and ensure that people with mental and learning disabilities, as well as children with all types of disability, who live in remote and highland areas of Lesotho get the chance to reach their full potential and achieve full rights within society.

This project has been running since 2002. Skillshare International supports this project by providing a development worker to share skills and ideas, and leadership training for the project co-ordinator.

Partners: Lesotho Society of Mentally Handicapped Persons (LSMHP)
Funded by: Comic Relief

Disability Project (Lesotho), April 2006 - October 2010

Disabled people in Lesotho constitute the majority of the poorest and most vulnerable groups. The objective of this project is to improve the socio-economic status and livelihoods of people with disabilities in Lesotho.

This will be done by improving the management capacity of the disability sector in Lesotho, by increasing co-ordination at ministry level, and strengthening local services to improve the income generation opportunities of disabled people nationwide. The project also aims to raise awareness of the issues surrounding disability, seeking to change attitudes and eliminate alienating practices. Working at both national, and local level, the project takes a holistic approach to meeting the development challenges of people living with disabilities.

Partners: Our partners in this project are the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and eight organisations and training centres for people with disabilities across Lesotho: Ministry of Health and Social Welfare; Itjareng Voactional Training Centre; Lesotho Society for the Mentally Handicapped (LSMHP); Lesotho National Federation of Disabled People; Ithuseng Vocational Rehabilitation Centre; Morapeli Girls' Centre for the Disabled; St Angela Cheshire Home for the Disabled; St Paul's School for the Deaf; Lesotho College of Education; Resource Centre for the Blind; Ministry of Education and Training.

Funded by: European Commission, Tribal Group Foundation, Trust House, Christadelphian Meal a Day foundation, Edith Murphy Foundation, Florence Turner Trust, and money from an anonymous donor.

Karabong HIV and AIDS Support Network Project (Lesotho)

This project serves 300,000 people in the Mafeteng district of Lesotho. It has brought together and supported HIV and AIDS awareness, counselling, testing and anti-retro viral systems. The project focuses on the district hospital and its specialist HIV and AIDS clinics, based within communities’ rural clinics and community-based HIV and AIDS support groups. Increasingly, these are run by people living with HIV and AIDS themselves.  Trained staff are now operating the HIV and AIDS patient information systems.

Mafeteng Hospital, through Karabong clinic, has decided to focus future activities on capacity building for communities, in particular to empower PLWHAs who have experience of HIV and AIDS management.  Karabong HIV and AIDS clinic has successfully strengthened its systems for counselling, testing and treatment at the main Karabong clinic as well as expanding its services to four new pilot clinics. 

Partners: Mafeteng Hospital
Funding:  Elton John AIDS Foundation

As You Sew (Lesotho), January 2005 - September 2007

This project aims to assess how far the employment generating and poverty reducing effects of international trade, in Lesotho's textile industry, actually benefit employees' children. The evidence will be used in specialist campaigns and advocacy activities to force national, regional and international stakeholders in the growth of this industry to take into account the needs of the children affected.
  
Partners: Non-Governmental Organisation Coalition on the Rights of the Child in Lesotho (NGOC), Lesotho Council of NGOs (LCN).
Funded by: Comic Relief's Make Poverty History grants programme

CLaSH  (Namibia), May 2003 - April 2008

This project works with the Association for Children with Language, Speech and Hearing Impairments of Namibia (known as CLaSH) to improve the identification, treatment and assistance provided to children with language, speech and hearing impairments.

CLaSH supports the education and development of deaf and hearing impaired children in Namibia to help them reach their full potential through both activities at the national level and support to individual students. The project also provides training and support to both professionals and parents.

Partners: The Association for Children with Language, Speech and Hearing Impairments of Namibia (CLaSH)

Funded by: Comic Relief and Rufford Maurice Lang Foundation

ENABLE (South Africa)

The ENABLE project aims to empower physically disabled learners with Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) and life and work skills, thus promoting independence and self-reliance. The project covers the KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa "where providing ABET to people with disabilities was not heard of until the ENABLE programme". In working towards a society for all, the ENABLE programme creates an inclusive, barrier-free education, training and development programme for physically disabled learners. For three years the project was funded mainly by the EU. Funding from the EU finished in June 2006 and the project is now supported by the Tribal Group Foundation.

Partners: ENABLE
Funded by: The European Union, Christadelphian Meal a Day, Tribal Group Foundation, Dorfred Trust.                      

Strengthening the Capacity of People Living with HIV and AIDS (Southern Africa cross-border project)

In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 25.8 million people are living with HIV. A recent study carried out by Skillshare International showed that people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA), their organisations and support groups face many challenges.

This project aims to address some of these challenges by increasing both individual and organisational capacity - working to improve PLWHA support networks and strengthen advocacy activities. Project activities include:

• Identification and training in care and support skills for 500 care-givers.
• Training in advocacy strategies for 80 support groups.
• Providing 20 support groups with kits for home-based care services.
• Training 200 caregivers within communities to support PLWHAs orphaned children.
• Supporting 12 community orphanages to initiate income generating activities.

We work with the four national networks of PLWHAs in Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana to deliver this project.

Partners: BONEPWA, SWANNEPWA, LENEPWA, Khindlimuka
Funded by: Irish Aid

Regional HIV and AIDS Behavioural Communication Change project (Southern Africa cross-border project)

Four development workers are supporting and strengthening behavioural change communication focused on youth and gender issues. This is part of a strategic programme to reduce HIV infections in Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and Lesotho. The project targets high risk groups including politically or economically displaced  people, commercial sex workers, young people and mobile sections of the population.

Partners: Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, BONEPWA, DRR Maseru, Taung Skills Centre, Lesotho College of Education
Funded by: Irish Aid 

East Africa

Capacity Building for Conflict Transformation (Kenya)

The Capacity Building for Conflict Transformation project began in 2005 with funding from Comic Relief. It aims to build peace in Africa by supporting a network of organisations working towards peaceful resolutions to conflict.

Skillshare International is working in partnership with the Coalition for Peace in Africa (COPA) in order to provide training in conflict transformation and to support advocacy in order to bring conflict issues to the national and international agenda. Also central to the aims of the project is building the capacity of COPA and developing African specific approaches to conflict management.

Partners: Coalition for Peace in Africa (COPA)
Funded by: Comic Relief

UNCODET (Tanzania)

This project seeks to address the problem of inadequate access and utilisation of maternal and child health care services amongst the rural population of Uru North, Tanzania.

Its goal is to improve the health of women of child bearing age and children, especially under fives, by making child, pre and antenatal and family planning/reproductive health services readily available and ensuring informed demand through information and education.

Partners: Uru North Brampton Tanzania Trust
Funded by: The Big Lottery Fund

Women’s Micro Enterprise Initiatives in URU North (Tanzania)

This two-year project, which began at the start of 2005, supported the development of craft and entrepreneurial skills to members of two women’s groups to create economic empowerment and build self-esteem. It aimed to move the women in Uru North in Northern Tanzania from dependency and isolation to social and economic empowerment by:

• Providing capital and equipment for training and income generation activities.
• Providing business and crafts training.
• Building mentoring links to other successful groups.

Partners: Uru North Community Development Trust
Funded by: The Mcknight Foundation

Siminjaro Mother and Child Health Care (Tanzania)

This project, which began in 2001 and has now finished, addressed the problem of inadequate access to essential health services among the semi-nomadic Maasai population of the Simanjiro District in the Manyara region.  The project aimed to increase the use of and access to mother and child health care services in the district. 

Partners: Siminjaro District Council
Funded by: The Big Lottery Fund

Asia

Samraksha HIV and AIDS Care Continuum (India)

The aim of this project was to prevent the spread of HIV in Bangalore and to reduce its impact on those already affected by providing counselling, care and support services for people living with HIV and AIDS and their families.

In 2006, the Samraksha Care Continuum reached 6,069 people living with HIV and AIDS.

• 913 people have made use of the support and advice helpline.
• 364 people have received counselling.
• 130 doctors have been trained in HIV counselling and support.
• Seven people were helped to access legal support after they were refused treatment in government hospitals.
• 147 people were offered voluntary testing through the outpatients' clinic and 2,145 people were referred to other hospitals for voluntary testing.

Partners: Samraksha
Funded by: Elton John AIDS Foundation

Tsunami Project (India)

Skillshare International worked in three villages in Tamil Nadu, on the southern tip of India, which were devastated by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. The project adopted a sustainable approach to the rehabilitation of the economic and social structures within these disadvantaged communities of fisher folk and Dalits. The project ran from 2005 with funding from Christian Aid.

The project included the building and rehabilitation of housing which was destroyed in the Tsunami, the provision of fishing boats and equipment, training in alternative livelihoods and psychological counselling amongst other things. Two Skillshare International development workers worked in the villages; one providing health training to village health volunteers and the other working with the communities on disaster preparedness and early warning systems.

Partner: The Coastal Education and Cultural Trust (CECT)
Funded by: Christian Aid

Railway Children Project (India)

Manav Seva Sansthan is a charity operating in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh in Northern India which rescues street children and offers support to vulnerable families in the area.  It runs a shelter and a school, and offers welfare and rehabilitation services.  Gorakhpur is a major rail transport hub.  As a result of rural poverty in the surrounding area and over the border in neighbouring Nepal, the railway station has become a centre for trafficked children and runaways.  The children are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. 

Tribal Group Foundation is supporting this project, both directly and via employee contributions.  In 2006-7 the Tribal Group Foundation donated over £5,000 to sustain the care and education programme for 40 street children.

Partner : Manav Seva Sansthan
Funded by: Tribal Group Foundation

Knowledge Confidence and Healthier Lives, 2002-2005

The aim of this programme, which began in 2002, is to provide disadvantaged communities in India with relevant and adequate skills and knowledge to improve their health. The communities consist mainly of indigenous people, Dalits, traditional artisans and others on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder. The project focuses on women and children in the communities.

• 70,000 people in and around 400 villages have directly benefited from the programme.
• 414 village health workers have been trained through the programme.
• In the first two years infant mortality rates significantly reduced in the project area.

Partners: Association for Health Welfare in the Nilgiris (ASHWINI), Manav Adhikar Seva Samitee (MASS), Seba Jagat, Singhbhum Legal Aid and Development (SLADS), Kairali Mahlla Samajam, Tribal Health Initiatives (THI).       
Funded by: The project was jointly funded by the the European Union , the Clothworkers Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Besom Foundation and the Tribal Group Foundation between 2002 and 2005. We are now seeking further funding for the continuation of this project.         

Four Wells Project

This was a small project which aimed to provide clean drinking water to four communities in India by installing wells in each of the villages. It was funded by the Besom Foundation in memory of Gary Doran.
Partner: Seba Jagat
Funding: Besom Foundation

Europe

East Midlands Network for Global Perspectives in Schools (EMNGPS)

EMNGPS brings together a range of organisations with an interest in working with schools in the East Midlands to raise understanding of development issues. The aim of the strategy is to place schools in a stronger position to engage with and respond to the challenges of globalisation, sustainable development and active citizenship.

EMNGPS works with teachers and school communities to embed global perspectives throughout the curriculum, it builds partnerships and networks throughout the region in order to develop a coherent approach to global perspectives and promotes and circulates learning about global perspectives with its target audiences

Skillshare International works in partnership with EMNGPS to host the project at our Leicester office and provide a project manager responsible for taking forward the EMNGPS strategy.

Funded by: DFID, initially until 2008.

For further information please contact info.emngps@skillshare.org