The Lorna Young Foundation is delighted to be able to announce that we are one of the 19 chosen charities to be awarded funding for our Ethical Entrepreneurs work by the Scottish Power 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
The LYF recently held our first ever webinar – dedicated to the work of our Farmers’ Voice Radio initiative – and we were thrilled at the level of interest – with nearly 200 people registering to attend!
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.
Many of our family and friends here at the LYF are familiar with our work and already committed to donating zakat during Ramadan. But for those of you who aren’t – please read on!
Smallholder Farmers in Harar, Ethiopia
The largest portion of the world’s 800 million poor are ‘subsistence’ farmers; barely able to make a living after they’ve fed their families with the crops that they grow.
So, making enough money to be able to cultivate and sell a crop for a fair price, in order to access better health, education and housing is simply a dream for most. And all too often these farmers are also faced with climate change disasters (flooding, drought) or a war or conflict; making death from hunger an every day reality for millions.
But our approach centres on ‘help up’ – rather than the ‘hand out’ approach. Through our unique Farmers’ Voice Radio project, we give hundreds of thousands of farming families across Africa access to vital information about crop cultivation, climate change, negotiating for a better price with buyers from the North and encouraging their young people not to desert farming life for the (often false) lure of city life.
Young Ethiopian farmers learning about Farmers’ Voice Radio
So, we help these coffee, tea, rice, nuts, fruit, cocoa, shea etc. farmers in Ghana, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Sierra Leone, the DRC and Uganda to create their own radio programmes; filled with content and vital information that they have selected and designed themselves; the most important advice for them – for their crops and for their family’s survival.
We also have a UK focus; we have never been fans of the ‘Dragon’s Den/ Apprentice’ greed-focussed approach to enterprise and instead, have been working to grow a new generation of ethical entrepreneurs. In 2009, we created the world’s first refugee-owned social enterprise; the Oromo Coffee Company. And since then, we have been working with groups of disadvantaged young people to teach them about problems facing the world’s poor. After they have been made aware of the interconnectedness with those living overseas who are poverty-stricken, we then support the groups to create their own ethical and community based social enterprises – selling fairly traded products and services. This is called our ‘Not Just Us’ programme.
The first Not Just Us group – in West Yorkshire
Our groups are comprised of young people from marginalised backgrounds, who also lack privilege and advantages needed to succeed. But we also ensure that our groups are made up of people from mixed backgrounds, so that misunderstandings and prejudice can be overcome through the medium of ethical enterprise. Our very first group began in West Yorkshire, where we worked with a group of Muslim and non-Muslim youth; all of whom were at risk of long-term unemployment, who forged some life-long friendships and who have now gone on to achieve great things!
Giving it Away – for FREE
But what makes the LYF even more unique is that we are a small charity with virtually no overheads. Since 2003, we have been home-based; no expensive London rent to pay, no ridiculous CEO salaries and no feathering of our own nests. We have always been determined to keep the vast amount of funding in-country; being spent on the people who need it the most. And even better than this – our Board recently took the decision to OPEN-SOURCE our Farmers’ Voice Radio work AND our Not Just Us work; meaning that our learning and advice can now be given away – free – to the communities who need it the most.
A refugee member of the Oromo Coffee Company – proudly displaying the coffee that they sourced from Oromia, with the help of the LYF.
So if you want to be assured that your zakat will be received with huge gratitude this Eid and will go directly to the poorest people in the world overseas … please do consider donating to us – and telling others about us!
Christina Longden, Director for the LYF has been a key driving force for our work to help poorer communities both overseas and in the UK. You can find out more about Chris’ own personal passions to challenge negative perceptions of Muslims here.
Some years ago, Irish entrepreneur Brian Keegan found out about the work of the Lorna Young Foundation and volunteered his time and skills with one of the smallholder coffee growing communities that we were supporting in Kenya.
Brian accompanied Ian Agnew from LYF to the Rumukia Farmer Co-operative Union in the Nyeri region, where he learned about the many challenges facing some of the world’s poorest coffee growers, who lack business and marketing skills and who earn only around 1% of the retail value of their crop.
Brian and some of the coffee farmers of Rumukia
Although Brian’s business and coaching support proved to be invaluable to the farmers, Brian himself came away deeply impressed with the hard-work, the level of professionalism and the commitment that the Nyeri farming communities had for their crops.
Today, Brian is still very much committed to the principles and the practices of ethical trading. He recently got in touch with the team at the LYF and mentioned that his latest ‘Scaling Up Global’ for businesses workshop will donate all proceeds towards the work of the LYF.
So in return, we just wanted to say …. CHEERS, BRIAN!
The Lorna Young Foundation is incredibly sad to share with you, the news of the death of Daisy Young, Lorna Young’s mother.
Daisy was born in 1931 in Mennock, Lanarkshire and on leaving school trained to be a nurse as well as working in the mills in the area. She met and married Bob Young and they went on to have three children. Daisy was a well known local figure, running a shop in the town of Lockerbie where the couple settled.
Daisy’s daughter Lorna was one of the pioneers of fair trade in the UK and was personally responsible for persuading national supermarkets to list fair trade products for the first time. When Lorna died at the age of 44, Daisy and Bob were devastated but continued to support their daughter’s work and were hugely proud of her achievements – efforts which continue to have an important impact on the world’s poorest people.
Daisy and Bob kept in close touch with Lorna’s former school and visited Lockerbie Academy on several occasions; reminding staff and pupils that Lorna’s legacy is carried by the Lorna Young Foundation and it’s overseas work.
Daisy’s loss will of course, be felt most profoundly by Bob and by Daisy’s close family and friends. The Lorna Young Foundation’s Director, Christina Longden says; “I always looked forward to chatting with Daisy. She was incredibly passionate about trade injustice – about quietly getting on with doing the right things for people who held very little of the power for themselves. She had an excellent sense of humour and although she was in a great deal of pain during her last couple of years, she would always say to me soon on into our conversations; ‘but enough about me, dear – how are you?’
Daisy’s presence, wit and strength will be missed by all her close family and friends – but most of all by Bob, her dear husband and best friend.
Terrific article in the Yorkshire Post – announcing our funded project in Sierra Leone! Read below…
A Yorkshire charity is helping thousands of isolated cocoa farmers in Sierra Leone with an informative ‘forest-friendly’ radio show. Chris Burn reports.
At a time when the UK’s overseas aid contributions are very much in the headlines, a small charity from Yorkshire is showing how it can make Government-backed support go a long way.
The Huddersfield-based Lorna Young Foundation has been awarded just over £53,000 from the Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to help expand its Farmers’ Voice Radio initiative, with a further £2,000 provided by the Souter Charitable Trust.
The Farmers’ Voice Radio scheme has been running since 2010 to broadcast trusted, vital agricultural information in developing countries around the world and has reached over one million smallholder farmers to date.
Many of these farming communities, often in remote areas, are under huge pressure due to issues like climate change and intensive cultivation leading to deforestation, degraded land and declining productivity.
Chairperson, Nialaforaa village, Gola, Sierra Leone. Photo credited to Twin. Cocoa pods. Photo credited to Twin.
The broadcasts bring together local farmers, agricultural experts and supply chain partners to share their knowledge and expertise to encourage more sustainable and effective farming techniques, as well as providing tips on how to sell produce for a good price.
Using their latest grant, the Lorna Young Foundation – named after a late Fairtrade champion – has now launched a radio project targeted at smallholder cocoa farmers living around the edge of the Gola Rainforest National Park (GRNP) in Sierra Leone. The area has been hard hit in recent years, having been on the frontline of both the civil war and Ebola crisis.
A charity spokesperson says: “The GRNP is home to many threatened species. It is a protected national park, but deforestation, slash and burn agriculture and charcoal production are huge threats. Cocoa is tree-based crop that thrives in agro-forestry conditions and can play a positive role in rainforest conservation; producing cocoa with forest-friendly credentials is a great business opportunity for local farmers, but due to geographical isolation, gender, and illiteracy, many smallholder farmers struggle to access information on how to make gains in this area. Coronavirus has exacerbated this situation by closing training programmes, shutting off trade routes and inflating local market prices.”
New programme Goolla Ndiamo Yie, which means ‘Forest Friendship’ in local language Mende, sees members of the Ngoleagorbu Cocoa Farmers Union meet each month to discuss a range of topics linked to forest-friendly cocoa production.
The discussions are recorded and edited into 15-minute programmes by community radio station, Starline FM, and broadcast twice weekly reaching an estimated listenership of 60,000.
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Minister Baroness Liz Sugg says: “The skills and expertise in grassroots organisations from across the UK, like the Huddersfield-based Lorna Young Foundation, are changing lives in some of the world’s poorest countries.
“This innovative UK aid funded project harnesses the power of communication to support farmers to grow their way out of poverty and protect their local environment.”
LYF’s chairperson Ian Agnew says: “The LYF’s approach is simple and incredibly cost-effective. We are delighted to receive this second grant from the Government’s Small Charities Challenge Fund, which will enable us to reach even more of Africa’s poorest farmers and to assist with achieving sustained poverty reduction.
“The learning generated from this new project on forest-friendly cocoa production in Sierra Leone will allow us to expand and improve our online Farmers’ Voice Radio resources, benefiting smallholder farmers in other regions at a time when accessing face-to-face support is particularly challenging.”
The LYF is pleased to announce the launch of our new website – dedicated to our Farmers’ Voice Radio initiative!
Coinciding with World Radio Day, we are revealing both our fantastic new – FREE – resource-based website, along with our new ‘brand.’ We thought that a funky little clay coloured radio would be just the ticket!
So – what are you waiting for? Scoot on over to www.farmersvoiceradio.org and have a look at the enormous amount of work that our small team has put into ensuring that smallholder farmers – ANYWHERE – can now access, in order to lift themselves out of poverty.
You can also join us in our latest ventures on Twitter with: @farmersvoiceradio and on Facebook with: farmersvoiceradio
PS – a very special thank you to Sally Davidson for her stunning design work. Talented person indeed.
As a small charity, it is often very difficult to get our voice heard and our work recognised, so we were over the moon to learn that we have made the long-list for Bond’s ‘Small NGO Impact Award’ for 2020.
Bond is well-known amongst anyone who works in the international development community. It provides support, advice and campaigning activity for a huge number of UK-based NGOs. The LYF’s Farmers’ Voice Radio initiative was selected as 1 of just 13 NGOs who Bond feel are demonstrating excellent examples of high impact through their work. Terrific stuff!
It goes without saying that we wish all of the best to the other chosen NGOs and thanks to Bond – for this vote of confidence in our work.
The Islamic faith has a long tradition of peaceful and respectful trading activities. Justice, compassion, honest work and enterprise are key components. Did you know, for example, that the Qu’ran has more written on the subject of trade and commerce, than any other subject?
The largest portion of the world’s poor, are the 800 million who live in rural areas; great distances from the nearest markets and basic health and social services. The majority are ‘subsistence’ producers or farmers; barely able to make a living beyond feeding their families enough, just to stay alive.
Making enough money to cultivate and then sell a crop for a fair price, so that they can access better health, education and housing is simply a dream for most.
Smallhold Farmers working with the LYF in Harar, Ethiopia
Muslim supporters of the LYF are keen to spread the word about this small but mighty UK based charity. Unlike many of the other ‘household name’ charities, the LYF focuses entirely on helping poor communities both in the UK and overseas, supporting them to become effective, ethical entrepreneurs. We now work with many Muslim communities in various countries across Africa through our Farmers’ Voice Radio initiative.
Not content with providing ‘a hand-up, rather than a hand-out’, the LYF also uses its programmes to bring together different communities and people of faith. Several years ago the charity set up the ground-breaking Oromo Coffee Company – a Fairtrade coffee company designed to support Oromo refugees in Greater Manchester.
Then the LYF set up ‘Not Just A Trading Company’ across the north of England – helping youth from different backgrounds to overcome divisions by forming their own ethical trading enterprise. The charity has also worked to support Arab producers in Palestine/Israel and continues to develop new approaches to bring communities together in the name of ethical trade.
Our first ‘Not Just A’ ethical enterprise group, West Yorkshire
Most recently, Christina Longden, Director for the LYF has been a key driving force for our work to help poor Muslim communities both overseas and in the UK. You can find out more about Chris’ own personal passions to challenge negative perceptions of Muslims here.
The LYF is a very unusual, small charity. Based in Huddersfield, UK, the organisation has minimal overheads. No expensive offices or salaries and there is certainly no feathering of our own nests! We work to keep the vast majority of our funding with the people who need it the most and who can only dream of the privileges that we have.
See www.lyf.org.uk and watch out for our brand new Farmers’ Voice Radio website – soon to be launched!
PLEASE consider donating zakat to The Lorna Young Foundation this year and share our work with your mosque and community groups.
