We are thrilled to be part of this multi partner collaboration, which brings together The Body Shop International, Tungteiya Women’s Association, Cargill Zor, Solidaridad, the Global Shea Alliance (GSA) and us at the LYF. We have been working together on a project that aims to strengthen the sustainability of the shea supply chain in northern Ghana by connecting women shea producers to the knowledge they need to improve their economic resilience.

The collaboration has developed a 3-year project that uses the LYF’s Farmers’ Voice Radio methodology to produce the radio programme Kpihi Saha (Shea Time) that raises the voices of women shea producers on Ghanaian radio stations, Zaa FM and Simli Radio, to address the issues that matter to them.

Kpihi Saha is broadcast four times a week in local language, Dagbani, to an estimated audience of 400,000 people, and discusses quality shea nut collecting, processing and marketing, health and safety, diversifying livelihoods and protecting the shea parklands, as well as broadcasting local shea market prices. In addition, 5720 women will receive training on gender smart business skills, collective marketing, health and safety, climate smart agriculture and income diversification. The project complements GSA’s Action for Shea Parklands initiative, with community level advocacy focussed on sustainable management of the shea parklands.

The Body Shop’s Virginia Sampaio visited the project at the end of 2022 with the Lorna Young Foundation’s Farmers’ Voice Radio representative, Hannah Clark. There, Hannah she met shea nut collectors and butter processors who feature in the weekly radio programmes. Saudatu told the LYF: “The Kpihi Saha radio programmes have transformed my life. I used to add spoiled nuts, but the programme taught me to move the spoiled nuts and now I get better shea butter- it is high quality. I educate a lot of people about the Kpihi Saha radio programme […] It makes me feel important, that I am an ambassador”.

Rakia Shaibu shared how access to information has changed her practices and the impact of this on her family, “I never imagined I could make 200 Ghana cedis profit from my shea nuts, but now I am able to make between 300 and 400 Ghana cedis. This school academic calendar when my husband was unable to pay for our children’s school fees, I did not struggle to pay.”

This LYF project has been funded by the Fund for Responsible Business (FVO), as part of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, The Body Shop International and Cargill Zor.

For more info on our Farmer’s Voice Radio work – head over to our FVR website!

The post Body Shop International partners – win Sedex Sustainability Award first appeared on Lorna Young Foundation.

First of all, we always want to pay tribute to our namesake, Lorna Young herself. Lorna was the key player in terms of banging on supermarket doors back in the 1980s’ – convincing them that buying fairly traded coffee and tea was the absolute least that they could do in terms of supporting the world’s impoverished smallholders who provide the vast majority of our imported food and drink.

Without Lorna, the UK – if not the world – would be much further behind when it comes to fairly traded products being a staple in most of our cupboards.

Secondly, we want to honour our wonderful friend and collaborator – Cristina Talens. Cris came to work with us after she headed up ethical trading at the wonderful Betty and Taylors of Harrogate. As someone who spent a lot of time out in the field (literally) with coffee and tea growers, Cris was all too aware of the dreadful struggles facing smallholders – and in particular the women farmers – when it came to possessing enough knowledge and training to grow better crops, combat climate change and have more say in the running of the farmer co-operatives.

Cris’ knowledge was crucial in helping us to dream up our idea for Farmers’ Voice Radio and since she came on board with us – the initiative has gone from strength to strength.

Cris now owns and runs her own company – Source – which also makes the UK’s first sustainable and carbon-neutral coffee! Despite being a woman of many talents, Cris is still an advisor to the LYF and is a very dear part of the LYF family.

Finally, of course, we want to pay tribute to the millions of women smallholder farmers; carrying out back-breaking work every day as they grow, cultivate and pick their crops, whilst at the same time battling climate change, bringing up children, running a household, looking after elders and supporting their communities. Without these women, the rest of the world would lack so many of our staple foods and our luxuries.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY!

Please help us to further support women smallholders across the world, by donating to our crucially important work here!

The post IWD – Two Special Women (Plus Many More!) first appeared on Lorna Young Foundation.

At the Lorna Young Foundation, we are proud to be working currently with two Fairtrade tea cooperatives -Sireet Outgrowers Empowerment and Producer Co Ltd in Nandi County Kenya and Sukambizi Association Trust in Mulanje, Malawi.

Smallholder tea farmers from both cooperatives are now the stars of their own Farmers’ Voice Radio programmes – the initiative created by the Lorna Young Foundation – and through this, they share their knowledge and experience with thousands of others about what works for them, to make their crops and their livelihoods more resilient to increasing temperatures and more extreme and unpredictable weather events.

Listener Paulina in Nandi, Kenya, said about their radio programme, ‘The Sound of Farmers from Sireet OEP’: “We get empowered and get new skills of farming. I heard when they were talking about… soil management and I now know the benefits of using mulch as it conserves water.”

We wish everybody involved in the activism and celebration of the Fortnight – a very happy Fairtrade two weeks!

The post Fairtrade Fortnight & FVR first appeared on Lorna Young Foundation.

Thanks to the innovation of the Lorna Young Foundation, a small charity based in the north of England, Farmers’ Voice Radio is now making massive strides in transforming the lives of millions of farmers and rural communities across Africa and Latin America.

The Need for Radio

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic and the current cost of living crisis, smallholder coffee farmers were under increasing pressures from a combination of climate change, unsustainable land management practices and global market volatility. Isolation, war and conflict, poor infrastructure, low levels of literacy and gender inequality have meant that many people in these rural communities lack access to the skills, tools and information they need to overcome these challenges and make their farming a success.

Radio continues to be the most trusted, affordable and accessible communications medium across many parts of the world – and nowhere more so than in the rural areas of impoverished nations and those suffering from war and conflict – where radio reaches thousands simultaneously with the same message. Because there is no reliance on the written word, radio is particularly important for farmers who often have low levels of literacy and who cannot access mobile technology or afford to pay for data. And more often than not, women are excluded from finding out more about making the land that they themselves cultivate in order feed their children and to earn a livelihood.

One of the most troubling aspects of our work here at the Lorna Young Foundation, since we were established in 2003, has been seeing the impact that climate change and war and conflict has had on farmers: whether farming coffee, tea, rice, shea nuts or cacao, farmers have told us of enormous changes and threats to their crops over the last couple of decades – so we have reacted to this by creating a Farmers’ Voice Radio – an approach that can embrace ways of dealing with many threats to crop yields, including deforestation, flooding, drought, disease, pestilence and the devastation brought by war and conflicts.

What Farmers Voice Radio Does

FVR works in partnership with farmers themselves – whatever sort of crop they cultivate. The farmers tell us their information and training needs and we support their community radio stations to design a programme around this, in local language. The programmes are then broadcast – reaching sometimes to up to 1 million farmers scattered across rural areas.

Farmers who have access to a phone and to texting are invited to text in their questions to be answered by agricultural experts in future programmes and other information needs – such as preventing COVID-19, HIV/AIDS, advice for women, news in relation to war and conflicts etc. can also be added onto the programme content.

The very first set of our radio broadcasts took place in Kenya and the stakeholders involved decided to call the programme ‘Farmers Gold’. A broad audience of 4.5 million was achieved, resulting in 705 more farmers joining a local co-operative (50% of them women) and 70,000 new disease-resistance coffee trees being planted during the first few weeks of broadcasting, leading to much higher and more successful yields.

To date, Farmers’ Voice Radio has been implemented in dozens of agricultural communities across 9 African countries and in Latin America. We have received partnership support from many wonderful commercial partners, such as the Body Shop International, Dark Woods Coffee and the Rainforest Alliance, all of whom rely on securing high quality products from producers – and who are truly committed to paying the farmers a fair price for their produce.

Our FVR Academy

We have now developed a ‘Farmers’ Voice Radio Academy’ – putting the power of participatory radio into the hands of thousands more smallholder farmers’ by providing training and coaching to the organisations and individuals working with them.  This involves a free online learning network that includes group training sessions for farmers and their local partners – with individual coaching from us, a resource hub with downloadable guides and tools, a community of practice for peer support and an opportunity for participants to apply for a small start-up grant.

Between March and June 2022, 16 individuals representing 13 organisations from seven countries (Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia, Ghana and India) participated in our inaugural Farmers’ Voice Radio Academy.  All participants were staff or volunteers of radio stations, NGOs, community-based organisations or farmer associations, and many of course, were also farmers themselves, with a deep personal understanding of the challenges facing the rural communities they work with.

Future of Farmers’ Voice Radio Academy

The Farmers’ Voice Radio Academy approach has not only been transforming the lives of the farmers themselves, but has deeply impressed the companies who process and sell these commodities. Dark Woods Coffee supported the Lorna Young Foundation to trial our first ever FVR project outside of Africa, when we worked with vulnerable coffee growing communities in the north of Panama.

Over the next year, the Lorna Young Foundation aims to continue to support the lives of vulnerable smallholder farmers. Through the Farmers’ Voice Radio Academy, the charity plans to train 20 more radio stations and farmer organisations, reaching another three million smallholders with its radio programmes and we’re currently preparing to work in partnership with the Rainforest Alliance with farmers in rural South Africa.

Help us to Help Struggling Farming Families

The Lorna Young Foundation, however, is a small charity and very much relies on the generosity of a few grant makers and donors. We need financial support if we are going to be able to continue to offer this opportunity for free.

Donations can be made via the QR code below, or via https://www.farmersvoiceradio.org/support-us

“As a journalist … [I feel] the need to have the programme run at our radio station to foster change in the way our community does its farming activities. Better practices will in turn lead to better yields and market access...”

Fatma Mzee, Operations Director of Vox Radio and Farmers’ Voice Radio Academy graduate and start-up grant recipient.  

The post FVR @World Radio Day! first appeared on Lorna Young Foundation.

Thanks once more to editor, George Wiessala and to the many readers of Radio User, who have shown such interest and enthusiasm in our Farmers’ Voice Radio work over the last few years.

And a special thanks, of course, to all communities and partners who have worked with us over the last 12 months.

Here’s to some more fantastic results for the rest of the year!

The post Radio Users Supreme! first appeared on Lorna Young Foundation.

We’re truly sorry to have to say farewell to Leticia. During a short amount of time, she has proven herself to be an outstanding member of the team, an enthusiastic worker and someone we can rely on to get her teeth into a range of jobs; an essential quality for anyone who works in the small to medium charity sector in the UK!

So, over to Leticia, for her take on her experience at the LYF – but not before we’ve wished her all the very best for her future!:

“As my time at The Lorna Young Foundation comes to an end, I find myself reflecting on all that I have learned from the Foundation. I can honestly say that the organisation’s pursuit to support smallholder farmers in Africa has now exposed me to the great world of fair trade. 

In the past six weeks, I have helped summarize the Farmer’s Voice Radio academy projects and learned the specific challenges facing cooperative groups in multiple African countries. I have also strengthened my fundraising, data analytics, and research skills through grant work, analyzing baseline and end line data, and finding best fits for publications.

I have also had the pleasure of meeting an influential person in the ethical trading sector – and former board member of LYF – Albert Tucker. Mr. Tucker agreed to talk to me about his career journey, the biggest challenges in fair trade, and the success stories he has witnessed over the years. I learned a lot from Albert, especially about how trade and ethics affect us all—  consumers and producers alike.

Working with LYF whilst doing my study abroad provided me the flexibility of experiencing British work culture, expanding my network while also exploring London. Everyone on the team was especially helpful in my transition, understood my objectives, and worked to accommodate my learning.

I hope to further my knowledge of fair trading in my personal life and encourage others to take part in ethical consumption. International organizations like the Lorna Young Foundation are far few and in between — and are not as explicit, or as easy to find — in the United States. As I journey back home, I will continue to share the missions of LYF back to the States and see what similarities exist.”

The post Thanks to Leticia! first appeared on Lorna Young Foundation.

Leticia Nketiah will be helping us with our Farmers Voice Radio and our Not Just Us programmes— as well as with other elements of our work here at the LYF directly. Leticia is a US citizen and was keen to work with a UK charity. So, we’ve asked her to share a bit more about herself …

Hi, my name is Leticia Nketiah. I am a senior undergraduate student at The Ohio State University majoring in Public Management, Leadership, and Policy with a minor in Global Public Health— concentrating in Health Policy. I have a passion for public service and resolving some of our world’s most pressing healthcare problems such as access, affordability, and equity.

This summer, I am studying in the UK, not only to learn more about the world in a diverse, global city like London, but to also gain more professional experience working for an international organization. I chose to intern at the Lorna Young Foundation because I value its mission of alleviating poverty through ethical trading.

I was raised by Ghanaian immigrants who worked hard to provide the best for their families. My father grew up working on a farm, my grandmother’s produce kiosk was the heart of her village, and most of my siblings have that same entrepreneurial drive. Agriculture is a major source of revenue for developing countries and also how many earn their livelihoods. Thus, I understand the value that organizations such as the Lorna Young Foundation play in the lives of disadvantaged groups and am happy to be a part of the process.

I am hoping that my time here will help me learn more about public service from the perspective of a charity with an international and domestic focus. Personally, I wish to sharpen my own skills in nonprofit management, leadership, and communication. Above all, I am looking forward to understanding more about how LYF’s work can inspire policy and advocacy for disadvantaged groups.

The post Leticia at the LYF first appeared on Lorna Young Foundation.

Competition for the funding was fierce – with hundreds of worthy projects and charities applying, so it was even more heartening for us to be hear the good news!

Ian Agnew, Chairperson of the LYF said: “Lorna Young was an outstanding Scottish woman. An ethical entrepreneur who changed British society’s way of viewing the products on UK supermarket shelves, she was a original trailblazer who wanted people to realise that we can change the world through our purchasing habits.

It therefore means a great deal to us – that the Scottish Power Foundation has recognised our work in this way – and that their funding directly addresses the problems currently facing communities due to climate change. Thanks to their support, during 2022, we will be working with 4 groups of disadvantaged people to help them to use our ‘Not Just Us Toolkit’ and to become the ethical entrepreneurs of tomorrow.”

The groups that the LYF will work with over the course of the year will gain the opportunity to create their own social enterprises, learn business skills and earn some money for a cause. This will improve economic and employment chances and foster local, ethical and environmental responsibility.

The Scottish Power Foundation’s press release can be found here

Thanks for believing in our work, Scottish Power 

The post Scottish Power Foundation – Supporting the LYF first appeared on Lorna Young Foundation.

Bob was a Scotsman – a true gent – who loved his wife Daisy deeply and who missed her terribly since her passing, only 9 months before him.

He will be fondly remembered by all who knew him, for his warmth and wit.

On behalf of the board and staff of the Lorna Young Foundation, we extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to Bob’s family and friends.

The post Bob Young first appeared on Lorna Young Foundation.

Led by Hannah Davis, Hannah Clark and Cristina Talens on behalf of the LYF, the event was hosted focused on how our participatory radio approach works and the impact it has achieved through projects in Kenya, Ghana and DRC. Webinar attendees heard from some of LYF’s partners; Virgina Sampaio from the Community Fair Trade Team at The Body Shop, Luke Wepukhulu of Mount Elgon Agroforestry Communities Cooperative Enterprise and Grace Hutchinson from InsightShare. The webinar also heard from Jeneba and Amara – two farmers in Sierra Leone and from two MEACCE farmer members, Esther and Agnes.

The LYF team were overwhelmed with the responses and questions both during the webinar and afterwards; you can watch the webinar at the link here and read more comprehensive information about it at our FVR website.

The post Worldwide FVR Webinar! first appeared on Lorna Young Foundation.