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Celebrating 20 Years of Shared Interest Foundation

Celebrating 20 Years of Shared Interest Foundation
19 février 2024

This month, Shared Interest Foundation celebrates it's milestone 20th anniversary. 

Our Mission

In 2004, Shared Interest Foundation was established to provide business and financial training to less-established organisations, those of whom were vulnerable to shocks and too small to access financial support. The purpose of the charity maintains to deliver projects that are tailored to meet the needs of farmers and artisans in desperate need of support, to address the immediate and pervasive challenges they are facing.

The United Nations warns that these crises have already reversed progress toward their Sustainable Development Goals, potentially forcing an additional 75 to 95 million people into extreme poverty. You can read more about this in their 2023 Sustainable Development Goals report, here.

Against this backdrop, Shared Interest Foundation has worked hand in hand with farmers and craftspeople to strengthen enterprises, increase employment opportunities and empower communities. Over the past 20 years, the Foundation has delivered 51 projects across 15 countries, directly supported over 13,000 producers, 230 producer organisations and three producer networks. 

Because of our interventions, businesses are stronger and have improved the health and well-being of their workers. In addition to providing economic opportunities for households, they also generate seasonal and year-round employment, building more sustainable communities.

Watch our Anniversary Film

To celebrate two decades of building a fairer world, Shared Interest Foundation is proud to present a special anniversary film, chronicling the steady growth and various, vital impacts of its work across the globe. In the video, Shared Interest Managing Director, Patricia Alexander and Foundation Manager, Kodzo Korkortsi take us on a journey through the Foundation's history and establish its ambition for the future, all whilst shining a spotlight on the stories of the producers who are at the heart of the story.

Our Projects

The focus of Foundation projects during the early years was to provide training in access to finance and helping to build support networks for fair trade organisations in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Eswatini and Rwanda, the Foundation supported the development of two fair trade networks to provide much needed business support to artisans. 

As Shared Interest Foundation expanded, so did the regions we support, and in 2015 we began working in Latin America, and our first project was working with the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Small Fair Trade Producers to provide training to 25 co-operatives in financial management. 

Livelihood Security Fund

We have we also helped producers respond to natural disasters and get back on their feet when these disasters have struck through our Livelihood Security Fund. More recently, we supported a Ugandan coffee co-operative when they suffered severe flooding. You can read more about our Livelihood Security Fund here.

Partnerships

Through the development of strategic partnerships, successful funding and support from regional colleagues, we have expanded the scope of our projects and last year we delivered a record number of projects across six different countries. To learn more about our projects, click here

Support Our Work

If you would like to support our work in Africa and Latin America, you can choose to donate online, donate by post, fundraise or leave a legacy by clicking here.

JOIN US FOR OUR 20TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS!

To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we will be hosting a series of online events during 2024.

The first event will take place virtually on Wednesday, 28th February, from 10.30am until 11.30am. We would love for you to join us to hear more about the projects we have delivered and our exciting plans for the future.


Book your free space!

Email us: foundation@shared-interest.com

Register with Eventbrite: http://tinyurl.com/ty978baj

Make Fairtrade Friendly Pancakes Inspired by our Bees for Business Project

In the newest instalment of our 'Feed Me Fairtrade' series, our Partnerships Manager Sally Seddon showed us how to create some unconventional, yet delicious, pancakes using a creative selection of Fairtrade ingredients, including olive oil from the Palestinian farmers of Zaytoun and honey from Equal Exchange.

This 'Fairbruary', what better way to mark the occasion of our 20th Anniversary than by getting involved in an eclectic recipe that is inspired by our first Bees for Business project? Launched in 2018 and supporting 50 women in the rural community of Dakoro, Burkina Faso, the project enabled participants to establish a beekeeping enterprise and generate a sustainable source of income. It also facilitated the construction of a honey production warehouse and the installation of a solar panel to enable the women's group to process honey after dark, when the bees are less active. 


Learn more about our Foundation's Bees for Business project: https://lght.ly/e698c6d

Support our Work

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