Information: About Vision Africa
Vision Africa is a non-denominational Christian children's charity which is working to provide relief aid for children in Africa. Our focus is on education and we aim to help children who are in situations of deep poverty, or who have nobody to care for them and provide them with shelter and protection. Our current field of operation is in Kenya, but we may also expand into other countries at some time in the future.
Our charitable aims are:
- i. To advance the education of children in Africa, primarily under the age of 18, but in certain circumstances provision will be made for those over 18 who are still in education.
- ii. To relieve poverty and distress amongst children in Africa.
- iii. To protect and preserve the health of children in Africa.
Our Christian Values
As a Christian charity we hold a core set of beliefs and a faith in Jesus Christ. This means that our key staff and Board members are Christians and attend church regularly. It also means that we apply Christian moral and ethical values to all that we do and apply biblical principles of honesty and integrity to our work. We serve those who are less fortunate than ourselves as a way of showing God's love for mankind.
We treat all children equally
We recognise that many of our supporters are not Christians and we are grateful to everyone of you. We want you to be assured that we do not discriminate in which children we support; our aid is given freely to all children in difficult circumstances regardless of religion, race, tribe or colour. It's all about giving children a brighter future that would otherwise be denied to them. We strongly believe in and actively support the rights of children to grow up free of oppression, injustice, abuse and slavery and are commited to support the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Do we preach the Gospel?
The short answer is no.
Ours is not a Christian outreach mission, it is not about preaching the Christian message other than by demonstrating practical compassion. We do not make any demands on the children or people we work with to hear the Christian message or to convert to Christianity as a condition of our support. Our work is squarely aimed at providing relief aid, support and protection for children in desparate need. We may include educational activities based on Christian values, but only if appropriate and requested by the projects that we support.
Working with churches
We do work in partnership with local churches in both the UK and Africa and with other faith based organisations to further our aims. We are grateful for the practical and prayer support that we receive from our partner churches.
Funding our work
Most of our income comes from private individuals, churches and through our child sponsorship programme. We also work in conjunction with other charitable organisations to fund specific areas of our work where our aims are in harmony. Funding is also gained by means of grants and by the generosity of companies and other philanthropic organisations that are in sympathy with our aims.
It should be noted that we are not a grant making body, our work is in practical action and we are not able to support requests for funding from other organisations.
Our cost model
We operate a low cost model and we aim to keep our overheads as low as practically possible. We currently do not employ any staff in the UK, although this may need to change as we grow and the number of children dependent upon us grows. Today all of our UK team are volunteers who give up their time freely to operate the charity and none of our volunteers receive any remuneration from Vision Africa in respect of travelling to meetings etc. This means that we generally expend less than 2% of our income on running costs and administration. Details of this can be seen in our annual reports available elsewhere on this site. With this low cost model you can be assured that money given to Vision Africa goes exactly where it is needed - to help the children in Africa.