Partners against poverty
About Us
Mission
To uphold perpetual communal progress in Sub Sahara Africa through partnerships against illiteracy, poverty, hunger, unemployment, diseases, and discrimination in equal access to opportunities.
VISION
Africa that works for all
History
Our story starts way back, at the height of Covid-19.
The Foundation for Progressive Communities (FOPCO) Africa was first registered in 2020 as a self-help group by a group of friends in western Kenya. Initially, the idea was to collate ideas and resources to support members whose main source of livelihood had been significantly affected by the impact of COVID-19. The group was upgraded to a community-based organization as more people showed interest in joining the group. The ideology behind the formation of the group was revised to holistically accommodate all members, which had grown in diversity of age, gender, and ethnicity. Over time, we adapted to work towards improving the livelihoods of all the members and our communities within four major thematic areas that prioritized the eradication of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and diseases. In 2023, the founding members aspired to expand the services to other regions of the country. As a start, we initiated programs in the five Great Lakes counties and later expanded to ten other counties. We have partnered with civil societies from neighboring countries to act as our entry points to the greater Eastern and Central African communities and continue to leverage our strengths and specialties in advancing interventions with an overall impact on the collective growth and advancement of Eastern and Central African societies.
Who are we
The Foundation for Progressive Communities in Africa (FOPCO AFRICA) is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization working with communities in Eastern and Central Africa to find solutions for social and developmental challenges. In collaboration with local leaders and other grassroots civil societies, we leverage close partnerships to co-design and co-create tailor-made solutions to the priority needs of the communities we work in. We work across diverse societal setups, targeting diverse social classes and age groups, from rural, largely agrarian communities to urban informal settlements. As changemakers, we believe in equality for all, working towards bridging the gap on deficiencies and inequality in resource distribution at the societal level, allowing the most disadvantaged to rise together socioeconomically.
Why we do what we do
At FOPCO Africa, we believe that all humans have a right to a decent and satisfactory life experience. We endeavor, through our work, to reflect as a mirror of hope to the overwhelmed and disillusioned. We were born and firsthand experienced these challenges in the societies we serve. As we grew older and gathered fortune, skills, and experience, we saw it fit to seek partnerships with like-minded friends to help our communities find their way to a much more adaptive and resilient way of life. We believe that the indigenous people are well informed about challenges and have the potential to come up with more befitting solutions. We believe that they only need minor assistance to shift their mindset and organize their efforts for holistic solutions
Our guiding principles
The founding members of FOPCO Africa dreamt of creating a system of communal progress that works for everyone. Over time and through experience working with communities, FOPCO Africa has stipulated a set of core values that guide its day-to-day operations and cast its commitment on holding true to their desire of leaving no one behind. We believe that great relations with our stakeholders and respect for the indigenous culture lay the foundation for our success. FOPCO Africa adheres to the following guiding principles:
Human centric
Even though it should go without saying that the priority needs of beneficiaries must be without doubt part of every not-for-profit institution, we explicitly elucidate it to remind us of our commitment to the community. We work with communities using a bottom-up approach. We test our theory of change ideologies as supported by practical evidence. We leverage indigenous knowledge, culture, and experience in co-designing and co-creating interventions and work with community leaders in implementing and monitoring the impact of our interventions.
Continuity
FOPCO Africa partakes in the task of working with communities to exert long-term interventions for continued growth and development. Our work is reflected in our desire to walk the talk in partnership with our beneficiaries over the long term. We frown on working on quick-fix ideologies. We appreciate the time and commitment required to understand the underlying causal problems and stay the course long enough to seek fundamental solutions to these problems. Of course, we recognize the need to adapt to the socio-dynamic nature of the challenges societies face and maintain operational flexibility to address these challenges from time to time.
Impartiality
We believe that service to the community knows no gender, nationality, race, tribe, culture, religion, class, opinion, political affiliation, or any other artificial differences. We endeavor to accommodate diversity, equity, and inclusivity in all our affairs by promoting dialogues that create awareness and mutual understanding of cultural, religious, ideological, political, or ethnic differences. We, however, recognize that there are groups in society that have experienced historical disadvantages in accessing opportunities for progressive growth and development. In the spirit of bridging the gap between deficiencies and inequality in resource distribution, we remain conscious of such historical shapers in communal setups and accommodate nonpartisan interventions that ensure no one is left behind.
Respect
We strive to uphold the highest dignity and respect for everyone in our day-to-day endeavors. Our committed ethic for utmost respect for all can be reflected in the dignity we accord to everyone’s opinion and the professional expertise of our staff. We enjoy mutual respect and support from our partners, beneficiaries, and donors, trusting their experience, recognizing their efforts, and adapting our approaches to accommodate their feedback. We hold ourselves accountable for crediting the contribution of each team player and ensure our interventions are built around the recommendations of community members/target beneficiaries.
Partnership
We strive to build a network of friends and partners with whom we share a common interest in improving the livelihoods of the community members. We acknowledge that our work is diversified in nature, and we alone cannot accommodate the best skills, tactics, and approaches to reach every target beneficiary. We are conscious of the role of other organizations within our scope of operations and are cognizant of the efforts they extend forth to improve livelihoods. We are always seeking partnerships with other civil societies, government departments, the private sector, religious organizations, community-based organizations, financial institutions, and research institutions. We embrace the spirit of genuine collegiality, mutual respect, shared learning experiences, and collaborative effort for overall synergism in our interventions within the community we serve.
Accountability
We value the insights and critiques from our beneficiaries, donors, partner organizations, experts, and the general public. We recognize that we cannot develop without learning from the impact of our actions which can only be achieved with high-quality feedback and criticism. We recognize that our efforts, success, and failure, have an immeasurable impact on the actual lives and livelihoods of individuals. As much as we take pride in our success, we are even more conscious of our failures and echo to reflect and learn from them. At FOPCO, we are ready to share our lessons and accept feedback from others, irrespective of our differences in opinion. We endeavor to take action to continually listen, deliberate, and willfully adjust our approaches in ways that build internal and external respect and trust. We hold ourselves accountable for the work we pursue in the community, upholding the highest levels of integrity and committing to our promises to beneficiaries, donors, and partner organizations.
Our Team
Mr. Arthur Wamani is a passionate lover of nature with extensive experience in not-for-profit work. Arthur has worked with regional leaders in food security in different capacities to implement food and nutrition security projects. He brings on-board a wealth of experience having worked with diverse teams across the greater Eastern African countries in co-designing and co-implementing agricultural and climate action projects. Arthur holds an MSc. in Crop Protection from the University of Nairobi and is pursuing an MA in Project Planning and Management from the same university.
Miss Rose Alubala is an IT trainer and enthusiast of software development. She has a rich background in managing digital solutions across diverse sectors and is the lead counsel for FOPCO digital solutions. Miss. Alubala holds a BSc. in Computer Science from Masinde Muliro University and is pursuing a post-graduate diploma in project management.
Dr. Okoth Nathan is a renowned scientist with extensive international experience in designing and implementing agricultural experiments, with a bias toward soil science and plant nutrition. Dr. Nathan brings board wise counsel on finding solutions to persistent production problems with an intense focus on adaptive solutions for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Okoth holds a PhD in soil science from Kenya.
Mr. Malit is a professional agronomist with immense interest in supporting MSMEs to scale their digital solutions across platforms. He brings on board extensive experience in process and resource management from a wide field of digital management. Mr. Malit also doubles up as the extension lead for agricultural projects. Mr. Malit holds a BSc. in Agriculture and a Post-graduate diploma in Peace and Diplomacy from Kenyatta University.
Our partners
