About Advantage Africa
Advantage Africa provides encouragement, resources, advice and training as well as links to other sources of knowledge, skills and funds that will enable disadvantaged people in Africa to become more self-reliant. In the UK, Advantage Africa works to create a greater understanding of the resilience and determination of people in Africa to overcome poverty and hardship. We are active members of the Make Poverty History coalition.
In the village of Mitaboni in rural southeast Kenya, Advantage Africa is working alongside local people to enable 50 children with learning difficulties to go to school and gain everyday skills that will improve their lives. The project involved building a new classroom, dormitory, kitchen and water tank as well as teacher training and awareness-raising in the community about the needs and potential of disabled children. The school has transformed the lives of children like Anne Kalungu who has learned to speak and how to keep herself clean since she started going there. As children like Anne are integrated into the community, negative attitudes towards disabled people are being replaced with understanding and respect.
Building on the success of the Mitaboni project, Advantage Africa and its partner organisations are now planning to start two new schools in the Kenyan villages of Thinu and Kisayani, where disabled children currently have no opportunity to go to school and often remain hidden in their homes, unable to learn and play. We are also starting a new programme in Uganda that will support children orphaned by AIDS, and their carers, to overcome the poverty and stigma that they face each day.
Our history
Advantage Africa was founded by Jane and Andrew Betts in 2001 and was registered as a charity with four trustees, all with experience of development work in Africa, in 2002. The organisation was started with a specific emphasis on the role of inspirational people, who demonstrate strong qualities of leadership, determination and self-sacrifice, in the development of their communities.
Advantage Africa’s projects are focused on disadvantaged men, women and children who are living at the limits of their ability to cope because of poverty, disability or HIV/AIDS and who are denied opportunities because of misunderstanding, discrimination or stigma.
Advantage Africa is building strong partnerships with small community based organisations in Kenya and Uganda and supporting their efforts to transform the lives of some of Africa’s most marginalised people.