Open-Sourcing with Two Hannahs

We’re pleased to announce the arrival of 2 new employees – Hannah Clark and Hannah Davis!

We were inundated with exceptionally high quality applicants for our post of ‘Farmer Radio Development Manager’. This proved to be a very popular post – attracting some fantastic people with excellent experience. So, we faced a tough time indeed in terms of making a decision. And we would like to thank every single person who applied; no one enjoys the process of jumping through so many hoops and we appreciate the time and work involved by our applicants.

But after they had experienced several gruelling interviews, we came to the conclusion that two of the candidates ticked every single box for us. And both wowed us with their previous experience and obvious passion for what we do. Interestingly, they share the same first name; (perhaps following a bit of an LYF tradition – what with our Cris Talens and Chris Longden). It also turned out that both candidates actually knew each other already – and at one point had even lived together! Those of you who have followed the birth and growth of the LYF will be aware that we are a small charity who adopts a rather unconventional approach to what we do. Our programme delivery and achievements are proof of the pudding that daring to do things a little bit differently can deliver huge dividends for the farmers that we support.

So, after lots of thought and discussion, we decided to widen the post in terms of hours available and offered the job to both Hannah C and to Hannah D.

Hannah D and Hannah C with Ian Agnew

The two Hannah’s will be taking the lead on our flagship ‘Open Source’ Community Farmer Radio initiative. This is no mean feat – and our new colleagues have needed to hit the ground running. You will shortly be hearing more from them, what they are working on and how you can help the LYF to develop this fantastic new programme, empowering smallholders in Africa.
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More on Open Source Community Farmer Radio
The Lorna Young Foundation is a charity that works to connect communities, enabling them to trade knowledge, products and ideas that will make their lives better. We do this by devising and running programmes that bring together the many disconnected societies that make up our World- both in the UK and internationally. We have a rich history, taking our name from fair trade pioneer Lorna Young who broke down doors to get Cafédirect into supermarkets.

Our work is based on a deep understanding of international trade justice issues. We have a long track record of solving supply chain challenges, and access to networks that can deliver expertise and support. Farmer Radio – one of our flagship programmes – uses radio and text messaging to reach millions of small-farmers in Africa (and, later Latin America and Asia) with the information they need to manage and market their crops effectively.

Our aim is to bring about change: change in the attitudes and systems that prevent communities across the globe from working together to improve their lives.

Our new ‘Open Source’ initiative will be a game-changer in empowering participatory farmer radio, which enables farmers to leverage more value out of supply chains and tackle challenges. To date, we have undertaken individual farmer radio projects across Africa, but we are now moving away from frontline delivery and are facilitating significant scale-up. We are making our Community Farmer Radio model available on an ‘open source’, free of charge basis to any organisation that can use it to build a better future for farmer communities in the developing world.

How YOU Can Help
Get in touch with us if you are able to offer support in the following ways:
• Offering funding and sponsorship to help us scale-up our ‘Open Source’ approach across African countries
• Suggesting partnership opportunities for the LYF (i.e. with businesses, institutions, governments, communities, NGOs)
• Giving support for business planning, communications materials, IT support for an online platform, technical roll-out, legal support for ‘Open Source’ approach

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