€31 million in new grants will help children around the world

Expanding its work significantly, the IKEA Foundation announces €31 million in funding for USA and UK-based nonprofits helping children in developing countries.

“Our ambition at the IKEA Foundation is to help improve the lives of children and youth in the developing world,” explains Per Heggenes, CEO of the IKEA Foundation. “Our commitments so far will impact more than 100 million children. This is a huge challenge, and we are confident that our new programme partners in the US and England will help us achieve this vision.”

In 2012, seven grants will go to six different organizations in the US and UK:

• Clinton Health Access Initiative (USA), €11,685,023 to combat children’s diarrhoea in India.
• Clinton Health Access Initiative, €8,079,208 to combat children’s diarrhoea in Kenya.
• Mentor International (UK), €400,000 for prevention of substance abuse and the promotion of the health and well being of young people in developing countries.
• Keystone Accountability (UK) €100,000 for the Ground Truth initiative to develop an evaluation tool to improve aid performance and better humanitarian outcomes.
• Fight For Peace (UK) €1,545,929 for an initiative to train 128 community based organizations in cities around the world to use sport to rescue boys from urban violence.
• The Earth Institute (USA) €1,922,633 to conduct a demonstration project that aims to improve the quality of primary education in India.
• KickStart International (USA) €6,880,000 to launch a new programme in Zambia and southern Africa to help families out of poverty.

€7 million grant will help families in southern Africa out of poverty

One of the new grants the IKEA Foundation has committed to is €6.88 million for KickStart International to expand their work and launch a new programme in Zambia and southern Africa. Over the course of the five-year partnership, the IKEA Foundation and KickStart estimate that more than 47,000 of KickStart’s MoneyMaker pumps will be adopted by poor rural farmers and used to create highly profitable agribusinesses, enabling families to lift themselves out of poverty.

By 2017, this project will help over 280,000 people in southern Africa increase their family income and take the first major step out of poverty. It will also improve food security for over 3.8 million people in southern Africa.

Creating a better future for children

“A sustainable family income is essential for creating opportunities for children in developing countries,” explains Per Heggenes, CEO of the IKEA Foundation. “Our partnership with KickStart will help families in Southern Africa escape poverty and fashion a better future for their children.”

KickStart’s co-founder and CEO, Dr. Martin Fisher, said: “We are very grateful for the support of the IKEA Foundation. Launching our new program in Zambia will be essential to expanding our reach across southern Africa and dramatically increasing our sustainable impacts on poverty reduction and family livelihood creation among the rural poor.”

KickStart develops appropriately designed irrigation pumps, sold under the MoneyMaker brand, that have been proven to enable poor, rural farmers to grow high-value crops throughout the year, thus significantly increasing their income and helping them take a major step along a sustainable path out of poverty.