African Relief Fund

African Relief Fund (ARF) provides humanitarian aid in regions where essential assistance is needed. We deliver emergency aid and development programmes in education, clean water, agriculture, healthcare, orphan support, and skills training. A UK-based humanitarian organisation, ARF is driven by Islamic values. We work in Somalia and other African countries where the impact of natural disasters and conflict affects peoples’ lives and livelihoods. To ensure our interventions are suitable to local conditions and that funds are used effectively, we collaborate with the local people, governments, and nongovernmental organisations.

arf.org.uk Fundraise for us

info@arf.org.uk

+447483104031

Registered charity no. 1062752

Member since March 2021

Latest News

Women Empowerment

ARF’s Empowerment Projects for Women

At African Relief Fund (ARF), our Income Generation Programme prioritises women. In Somalia, we run livelihood and empowerment projects to give women a hand up. Many are single mothers, who have lost their husbands. Many have lost their homes as well and are trying to care for their families in IDP camps. Others have gathered the courage to return home, after having been displaced for many years due to famine, drought or conflict. They need all the help they can get to start over again.

Our Seamstress Training Project is designed to assist returnees who have to start from scratch to rebuild their lives. The project first provides skills training. Once our trainees have completed their education, we then provide them with a sewing machine, sewing equipment and start-up materials to help them start working.

Our seamstresses are able to provide a service that is needed in their communities from which they can earn an income. The skills and tools they receive help them grow in confidence and give them dignity through financial independence.

About us

ARF WASH PROJECTS

Safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene are crucial to human health and well-being. Unfortunately, as much as 45% of people in Somalia do not have access to safe water. ARF has extensive experience in delivering WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) Projects. We’ve been working in this sector since 2012. To date, we’ve enabled access to safe water, closer to home, for thousands of people and their livestock and livelihoods. We’ve done this by:  Constructing village boreholes in arid areas which require deep drilling.  Installing dozens of wells.  Building small dams and spring protections.  Implementing rainwater harvesting systems that mitigate the effects of drought in dry periods.

Did you know? The boreholes we install use solar-powered pumps to draw the water up. The residual solar energy is used by local communities, where there is no electricity in their villages.

We ensure the sustainability of our WASH projects by empowering local people. They establish village-level water committees to manage their own water systems. The committees often charge a small fee to villagers who benefit. This is used to maintain the water systems. .

Did you know? ARF’s Agricultural Projects have been extremely successful in increasing the output of subsistence farmers in Somalia. In Gebliev, where we work with 60 small farmers, farm outputs have quadrupled, and the income of farming families have increased significantly.

Maternity Health

The Horn of Africa especially Somalia has one of the worst maternity rates in the world, with 1 in every 12 women dying due to pregnancy-related courses. Under-five child mortality is just as poor, for every seven Somali children one will not live to see their 5^th birthday. Simple interventions can have a great impact on the outcomes for both mothers and their infants. African Relief Fund in collaboration with Somali Students Associations across UK universities worked hard to raise fundraise Maternity Project that aims at mothers and babies. The duration of the project was 12 months. Midwives, health workers, and traditional midwives’ skills have been improved and dispatched to their villages. Outreach teams were able to help 70,000 beneficiaries to access quality and the majority of them were mothers and babies. Beneficiaries of the project were from different parts of Somalia and the Somali State in Ethiopia.