My long-held dream of visiting East Africa – and more importantly, meeting and learning about the people who live there – came to fruition during a recent Pangea Giving site visit. For 3 weeks our team of four immersed ourselves in the social, environmental, cultural and economic realities of rural life in Kenya, Uganda and Burundi. I returned home profoundly impacted and humbled. A few examples: Who would have the courage to build a desperately needed maternity center in a rural village with no access to a reliable water source? Under the leadership of Wendo Aszed, Dandelion Africa is months...[ Read More ]

Knowing from our own experience that non-profit leaders often benefit from having a safe space to share experiences and coach each other in addressing challenges, members of Pangea’s Africa Pod asked some of our partners if they would find it useful to meet with one other. The answer was yes. So in 2016 we set aside a small amount from our grant pool to help our partners come together at the Dandelion Africa location near Nakuru, Kenya, in what we called the East Africa Leadership Forum (EALF). The intention from the start was that the forum belonged entirely to the...[ Read More ]

In 2018, Pangea Giving is excited to support a collaborative project grant between two long-term East African partners – SaCoDe and BIOGI. The idea for the Amagara Meza (“good health” in Kirundi) project was born at the East Africa Leadership Forum (EALF) in 2017. After meeting and learning from one another at the first EALF meeting in 2016, Francoise Nibizi of SaCoDe (Burundi) asked Ferdinand Wafula of BIOGI (Kenya) to present an introductory training following the 2017 EALF meeting in Bujumbura, Burundi. The 2-day training was held for 20 farmers in Gatumba (on the outskirts of Bujumbura) directly after the...[ Read More ]