AVIF is an innovative online charity, assisting with sustainable development via online & onsite volunteering in rural Kenya, East Africa. We work with partner communities in the Brazilian Amazon and Tibet too. Being virtual means negligible administration costs for worldwide impact. We believe in efficiency, honesty and transparency. WE DON'T CHARGE FEES.

[Panorama shot above by Simon Gardner, a volunteer, taken minutes before the storm hit him while cycling through Kenya on the Tour d'Afrique. His full journal and pictures are here].

This is the spirit of volunteering; Ben & Jason with friends raising money in the week-long Mannequin Challenge which raised over £15,000 for St Michaels Hospice in Harrogate. Incredible vocals by Annie Drury.

Maasai at TED (almost)

Written by Alison | 07 November 2010

Petr, one of our Czech volunteers from the Summer has managed to upload hundreds of his photos to both Flickr and Facebook to pass on just how amazing the month was he spent at the village of Enkito, Amboseli National Park, alongside fellow volunteers, Shiv and Emma.

This is one of Petr's photos of Narakiramart looking at this actual photo! She's smiling now but was actually scared of the camera.

I also just heard from Ben Rigby of The Extraordinaries aka micro-volunteering at Sparked.Com who's been talking to the world via a stage at TEDxNASA about how he's helping us get help to put in a well for the village to ease Narakiramart's chores (and the other women) of walking up to 8 KILOMETRES to fetch water.

Listen to Ben's powerful talk here :

This whole project started after a simple conversation with Maasai's modern man, Jackson, pictured below ( thanks to Emma for the photo).

I met Jackson while at the fabulous eco-camp; Stilts, in Diani Beach on the Indian Coast, this April. He and a few other village members moonlight as askari (warrior) nightwatchmen there as part of an exclusive friendly contract written years back with the owner. Although we have fabulous photos of Jackson turning up with a Cosmopolitan under his arm he is still extremely proud of his heritage, village and traditions, working in Diani simply to earn more for his community.

I'd literally just walked down off Mount Kenya that morning and had bags and bags of dirty wet clothes. I was stood washing my ridiculously large amount of clothing chatting to Jackson who dresses simply in the traditional shuka, flipflops made from old tyres and shorts! They do make up for it with jewellery though and Jackson does a roaring trade with the visitors, taking orders to make bespoke jewellery and texting these orders to the women in the community.

I felt fairly ridiculous washing my 4th pair of trousers in the sink while chatting with him but this was when he told me how far the women have to walk for water. They have donkeys to help and having our volunteers spend a month with Jackson and the community this summer, we know there is a communal tap just outside that works every Tuesday !!!!!

So .. if you can help us help these fabulous people and their amazing children then please get in touch. They'd love to welcome you into their village for a visit under the watchful eye of Kilimanjaro, otherwise, simply click here to help us help them. Asante sana!

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I love my job - volunteering just works

Written by Alison | 10 October 2010

.. I just received some fantastic news from the folks at NABUUR and the Friends of Arrow Web Hospital. Carolyn has managed to secure the remaining funding to ship the vital medical equipment to Kenya. Funds were offered by COCO, a children’s charity founded by Olympic athlete Steve Cram, who support children throughout the developing world.

(Carolyn sharing a joke with some of the ladies at Arrow Web)

This now means that Aid to Hospitals Worldwide, a fantastic organisation that recycle large item hospital equipment like X-ray machines and surgical tables from UK hospitals and gives them FREE to needy communities around the developing world, can ship almost a full container of vital equipment to the Arrow Web Hospital in Kayole-Soweto. The container will include beds, dental chairs, baby warmers and laboratory equipment and many other essential pieces, the value of which, as new, would be over £58,000 !!!

Bramuel J Simiyu, who tirelessly runs operations at this busy, overwhelmed community hospital and has helped to improve conditions and services on offer dramatically, is among the many staff that will welcome this incredible Gift, allowing the hospital to serve, even better, the thousands of very low income residents of the vast surrounding slum community. Its just so awesome when people come together and just get things done!!! Thank you to everyone involved.

As you'll see on the Friends blog, "Super-Facilitator" Carolyn also managed to convince NHS Grampian to support the Hospital and organised a visit from a small number of key staff. They brought six large bags of medical supplies and baby clothes with them donated by NHS Grampian staff and colleagues in Moray, Scotland. The visit will be the start of a long term relationship between Arrow Kenya and NHS Grampian, forging assistance and further collaboration with all kinds of improvements. Thats just fabulous, especially when you think this all started with me going to a little networking event at Harrogate Community Voluntary Service. It was there that I met Mary, who later became a trustee for AVIF, but who is also the northern representative for A2HW. Along with friends like Deby Atkinson of Paca, who held a ladies evening fundraiser for us we're now hitting the successes we are, simply due to people Volunteering .. ASANTE x!x

(Mary and my daughter, Robyn, at the fundraiser in May, this year)

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New experiences and progress made

Written by Alison | 01 October 2010

After a wonderful Summer I'm definitely enjoying the colours of [Fall] Autumn and watching the little waterfall return in our local woods from the incessant rain UK is getting right now.

It's good also that volunteers are still travelling Kenya to volunteer during their spare time. Mona (a Winter/Spring 2010 volunteer) had only just emailed me about her plans to help the Volunteer Centre progress (or the VCVCK; Vision Community Vocational Centre of Khalaba), when Catriona confirmed her flight details. She'll be assisting the community throughout November and most of December, perfectly timed as Director and founder of the project, Amanda, is fantastically awaiting the arrival of her baby daughter at the end of November so she'll need all hands on deck!!!

I've also just sent over donated funds from Eleanor (a Summer 2009 volunteer) allocated to the Mercy Home Well project. The hydrogeological survey was completed September 24th and a photographer captured the girls fetching water for one of the last times from the spring. The bricks, sand, cement, wiremesh & ballast for the work have been purchased and we hope the work will commence soon. Catriona should be visiting the girls early December.

Unfortunately we're still waiting for the survey to take place at the Enkito community in Amboseli. Jeff of Staff of Hope assures us it will be completed shortly.

In addition to all this activity I've been studying at the School for Social Entrepeneurs. I was invited for the 6 month course and am so thankful I was as its turning into a vital force in progress, getting KO2 active, our community interest company, set up to support AVIF's work, as well as my own local community. More soon ....

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What a day

Written by Alison | 21 September 2010

Today started out with me thinking .. "its going to be one of those days" :( .. wasps nests, dogs barking, pandemonium .. and then I sat down and opened my Inbox. Wow.

The Force is strong in today's emails!

Firstly I'd like to thank those involved in offering us a "Better Net Award" from The UnLtd Millennium Awards Scheme which will help toward "Safeguarding" costs in the preparation of our Community Interest Company here in the UK, ultimately supporting AVIF's development work.

Secondly, I must thank 2007's fantastic volunteers; Nick Kempson, Charlie Wright and all those involved in fundraising for the Mercy Home Foundation. Alongside TRUCC and Vicki and KWAHO, who is supplementing the drilling, we are going to able to put in a well in at Mercy Home. This means the girls no longer have to get up early each morning to walk down to the river and then carry back the large, heavy containers of water each day. There is also the possibility to earn an income as a water supplier to their local community. This is just fabulous news.

In the meantime the hydrogeological survey is about to take place in Enkito to confirm costs involved in sinking a well in that community. After spending the Summer in the village, volunteers have confirmed water is still a big issue. Current piped-supplies of water are shared to taps around the whole area. The tap 10 minutes away only supplies on a Tuesday! Can you imagine having to collect water in containers, enough to last an entire community a whole week. Impossible. We hope to help. If you wish to contribute please do so via the Donation site top left of this page.

Many thanks to Shiv for these details and her fabulous photos are available here.

(Siobhan and our liaison Jackson in Amboseli National Park, Aug 2010)

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Another summer over .. unless you want to go to Kenya NOW??

Written by Alison | 09 September 2010

The volunteers have sadly all left their communities now though both the villagers and the volunteers will have no doubt left huge impressions on each. Its never an easy time, especially for the children, to say Goodbye, but the great thing is memories, experiences learnt and of course THE PHOTOS .......

Emma's fabulous album from Amboseli is here on FaceBook and I'll pass on more as they get uploaded.

Enjoy ...