Alliance for Action Aid in Africa (Action AidA)

The Alliance for Action Aid in Africa (Action AidA) is a non profit organisation working to promote African aid to reach directly to vulnerable communities in Africa, through a multi-faceted approach to the consequences of extreme poverty. The Action AidA works on behalf of vulnerable communities by implementing practical projects/initiatives that address the extreme causes of poverty and aim to dramatically reduce poverty across Sub Sahara Africa.

The Alliance for Action Aid in Africa can be also described as an Alliance for African People’s Aid. It places more emphasis on working to fight poverty and its root causes in Africa. The Action AidA places special focus on working alongside poor people in Africa by equipping them with the proper resources, so that they can have the power to help themselves and their entire communities to escape from poverty. African people are at the heart of Action AidA's community-based efforts and anti-poverty actions to improve basic education, prevent the spread of HIV, increase access to health care, health education and sanitation, improve food security and nutrition, expand economic opportunity through skill training and income generating and social mobilisation. Action AidA will also consider delivering emergency aid to survivors of war and natural disasters in Africa, and helps people rebuild their lives.

The failure of the past efforts to sufficiently ameliorate the situation of the lower strata of the society living below the poverty line is a well known fact. With this fact in view, the Action AidA envisages to develop and implement programmes that address the issues and problems of the lower rung of the society, by involving the poor and the disadvantaged groups themselves as partners in such efforts. It plays a crucial role in social mobilisation, advocacy and lobbying, fund raising, project implementations which will directly reach to vulnerable communities in Africa.

This is a social movement for change, creating awareness through broad-based on campaigns across the African continent, including presentations, and marches as well as advertising efforts thereby mobilising citizens to become involved and to act in their spheres of influence. It aims to provide hope with the message that we can make poverty to become a histoire.

It also engages in co-ordinated advocacy and lobbying towards policy change, where necessary, as well as towards strengthening the implementation of existing policies and laws related poverty eradication.

The Alliance for Action Aid in Africa hopes to break the cycle of poverty and despair. It empowers poor communities in Africa to work for positive change. It seeks to help directly African communities to live where all human beings are in equal value and sharing resources.

Action AidA believes poverty is an injustice which must be overcome. Poverty makes people more vulnerable to conflict and natural calamity; much of this suffering can be prevented, and must be relieved. People's vulnerability to poverty and suffering is increased by unequal power relations. For example, gender, race, class, caste and disability well as poor policy. Women, who make up a majority of the world's poor, are especially disadvantaged.

Action AidA works with local community to build a safer world, in which people take control over their own lives and enjoy their basic rights. Action AidA believes also in overcoming poverty and suffering which involves changing unjust policies and practices.

Our Vision To make a poverty history by working to reduce poverty and its root cause in Africa through supporting and working directly with poor community in Africa. To that end, Action AidA seeks a continental of hope, tolerance and social justice, where poverty has been overcome and African people live in dignity and security. Action AidA will be a social force dedicated to ending poverty in Africa. It will be known everywhere in Africa for its unshakable commitment to end poverty and promote the dignity of African people.

Our Mission

Our mission is to serve individuals and families in the poorest communities in Africa by working to reduce extreme forms of poverty through multi-facet approaches and to promote innovative solutions to end poverty in Africa. Action AidA facilitates lasting change by: • Acting against poverty and its root causes by influencing policy decisions at all levels • Improving access to basic education • Preventing the spread of HIV • Increasing access to health care, health education and sanitation • Improving food security and nutrition • Expanding economic opportunity through skill training and income generating • Conducting Social mobilisation. Guided by the aspirations of Africa communities, Action AidA pursues its mission with both excellence and compassion because the African people whom we serve deserve nothing less. Strategies

The strategies of Action AidA will be:

o To develop programmes with specific target of reducing poverty in its areas of operations within a given timeframe; o To promote community based demand driven approach using rigorous social mobilization techniques in order to reduce poverty by bringing poor at the centre of development and by treating poor as subjects instead of objects; o To ensure holistic development intervention and partnership building that guarantees discernible impact on the livelihood of the poor; o To enable rural people to obtain quality basic services in cost-effective and sustainable manner with their direct involvement in identification planning, designing, executing and operating & maintaining the schemes; and o To build Action AidA as an independent, autonomous and a professional organization sensitive to the needs and aspirations of the poor people in Africa. o Increasing public attention on poverty and helping shift negative public perception by showing that poverty can be reduced in Africa by taking certain actions. o Combating HIV/AIDS Pandemic through increase of resources and capacity building for poor communities in Africa and mobilizing resources and ensuring that these resources reach and benefit the poor population to the greatest extent possible. o Monitoring implementation of Millennium Development Goals and calling for action to meet the goals. Assess poverty, policies on poverty, gaps and governments obligations. o Empowering women and children as a strategy to eradicate poverty. o Promoting good Governance transparency and accountability as a tool to fight poverty.

PROGRAMMES

1. Anti-Poverty Programme: Action AidA works to address extreme cause of poverty in Sub-Sahara Africa and challenge development countries towards implementation of good policies and awareness raising in favour of African countries. The aim of the Anti-poverty programme is to conduct advocate and lobbying actions, research, and education that inform and contribute to appropriate policy development and implementation in Africa.

2. Education & Literacy Programme: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela. Learning leads to a better life. Action AidA is providing education and literacy programmes that are playing a key role in breaking the cycle of poverty in Africa. Action AidA is providing education and literacy programs that are playing a key role in breaking the cycle of poverty.

3. HIV/AIDS Prevention: Action AidA is investing in the lives of children in Africa, and we are asking you to join us to help orphans of the HIV/AIDS crisis to find a new hope. Action AidA is ensuring that children who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS receive the care and education they so desperately need and providing support to their caregivers and grandmothers.

4. Sustainable Agriculture: Helping families grow enough food to feed themselves and their communities by providing agricultural training, tools and seeds. Helping people help themselves.

The Sustainable Agriculture programme is to make a lasting contribution to the improvement of food security in a number of food deficient villages of Africa, and, in particular, to improve the nutritional status of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in those villages.

Action AidA’s aim is to make a lasting contribution to the improvement of food security in a number of food deficient villages of Africa, with emphasis on the nutritional status of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in African villages. To achieve this, the Action AidA has adopted a holistic approach that includes:

o The provision of seeds, simple tools and extension services for the local production of major food crops such as maize, beans, peanuts, soybeans and cassava etc o Supporting food gardens in Africa o Provision of support to village associations that existed in the past, but that need to be revitalized o Provision of support also to individual households, where this is considered preferable o Contractual arrangements to conserve a part of the crop as seeds for the next crop year o Nutritional education, targeted in particular at mothers and children under 10 years old, and o Special attention to people suffering from malnutrition

5. Skill Training and Income generating: If you give me a fish will be angry again but if you teach me how to fish will not be hungry. So Action AidA is teaching the community how to help themselves through skills training and income generating.

6. Women and Gender: Helping women and girls realize their full potential and improve their standard of living. This is because African women have a pivotal role to play in reducing poverty. Action AidA is helping them to improve their lives through education, skills training, health programs, community organization, microfinance, and nutritional awareness.

7. Advancing Social and economic rights of disadvantaged people: Access to social & economic rights such as education, food, water, shelter and health care are basic human rights safeguarded by international law. Action AidA supports efforts to help vulnerable populations in Africa to gain access to the social & economic rights.

Human rights are claims that every human being is entitled to, in order to live a peaceful, free and happy life. Human rights have traditionally been characterised into civil and political rights, and socio-economic rights. The focus of the Action AidA is to advance the social and economic rights of vulnerable people in Africa. However our focus on social and economic rights does not mean that some rights are more important than others. All rights are fundamental, universal, and equally important for all human beings and cannot be separated from each other. The satisfaction of economic, social and cultural rights is a guarantee for the enjoyment of civil and political rights.