Field projects
Practical work with local partners in Sub-Saharan Africa
We start small, with one carefully chosen pilot, and grow only as fast as we can do the work well.
How we approach field work
- Partner-led. A local organisation leads implementation. We provide tools, data systems and funding support, and avoid building our own in-country operation.
- Conservation and livelihoods together. Each project is designed so protecting nature and improving incomes support each other.
- Community data collectors. Trained members of the community collect field data, supervised by a local team lead, and receive fair payment through the local partner.
- Consent and privacy first. People are told clearly what is collected and why, can say no without consequence, and have their data protected. Personal data is stored securely; only anonymised aggregates travel further.
- Safeguarding. Everyone involved is trained in safeguarding, and any concern is escalated immediately.
- Start with one. We deliberately run a single pilot before expanding, so we learn before we scale, and check the legal and tax position of each new country first.
Our planned first pilot: Water Watch
A community water-quality monitoring project. Trained community members test local water sources with simple kits, on a regular schedule and with the community's consent. The results go through the Data Centre's checks and become a regional picture of water quality that NGOs, researchers and local authorities can use. In our plan, a set of kits costs about $500, and income from commercial use of the resulting data can fund kits for the next community.
This is a plan, not a result. The pilot has not yet run, and the numbers come from our own planning documents.
Where
Our initial countries are Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon, with others to follow.
Work with us
If you lead a local NGO or community organisation in one of these countries and this approach resonates, we would like to talk.