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About Africa’s Gift

Practical action, shaped by communities.

Africa’s Gift is a UK-registered charity working with communities in Lesotho, Uganda and South Africa to improve food security, everyday health and environmental resilience. Poor nutrition and harmful cooking smoke are serious but separate challenges — our work addresses both, helping communities grow varied, nutritious food while reducing the fuel, water and time required to cook it.

Community member harvesting vegetables in Lesotho
Africa’s Gift volunteers and community members with an Eco Cook Bag
Working together

Working together for lasting change.

We believe effective change begins by listening. Africa’s Gift works alongside local organisations, community leaders, farmers and families. Together, we develop practical approaches that build on local knowledge, use available resources and can be taught and shared within the community.

Rather than treating soil, water, food and cooking as separate issues, we connect them as part of one approach to healthier diets and more resilient communities.

Our story

A partnership rooted in Malealea.

Our roots lie in a partnership between South Yorkshire and the community of Malealea in Lesotho. The relationship began in 2000, when conversations with local health workers highlighted the effects of prolonged exposure to smoke from open-fire cooking. The first partnership visit followed in 2003.

What began with cleaner cooking has grown into wider work encompassing Eco Cook Bags, regenerative agriculture, biochar, water capture, food growing and practical education.

Malealea Teaching Farm, Lesotho
What we do

Grow. Cook. Learn.

Three connected strands of work, delivered with the communities we partner with.

Regenerative growing in Lesotho

Grow

We demonstrate regenerative methods that restore depleted soil, capture water and help families grow more nutritious food.

Locally made Eco Cook Bags

Cook

Locally made Eco Cook Bags allow food to continue cooking without additional heat, reducing the need for fuel, water and constant supervision.

Teaching and shared learning

Learn

Teaching farms, community demonstrations and volunteer exchanges allow knowledge to be shared in both directions.

The people behind Africa’s Gift

Founder and Patron.

Ken Dunn MBE, founder of Africa’s Gift
Founder

Ken Dunn MBE

Africa’s Gift was founded by educator Ken Dunn MBE, who has spent more than two decades building partnerships between communities in the UK and sub-Saharan Africa.

He was awarded an MBE for services to development and local communities in Lesotho and sub-Saharan Africa.

HRH Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, Patron of Africa’s Gift
Patron

HRH Prince Seeiso of Lesotho

Africa’s Gift has been fortunate to have HRH Prince Seeiso of Lesotho as its Patron since 2008.

His long-standing support reflects the depth of the charity’s partnership with communities in the Kingdom of Lesotho, and the trust built through more than two decades of shared work.

Registered & accountable

Openly reported. Independently audited.

Africa’s Gift Limited is a registered charity in England and Wales. Our accounts, annual reports and trustee details are publicly available on the Charity Commission’s register. Every donation is stewarded by a volunteer trustee board and reported in line with the Commission’s requirements.

Charity credentials
Registered charity
1149830
Company number
08263480
Charitable status since
2008
Governance
Volunteer trustee board

Help this work keep growing.

Every donation funds the soil, water, growing and cooking work in Lesotho, South Africa and Uganda — delivered by volunteers, with the communities that run each project.