The Naked Difference: How ForAfrika provides life saving interventions in Africa

A special Naked Difference cause whose core purpose is to feed and help those in vulnerable communities.

In 1984, Mozambique experienced a famine that affected nearly four million people. After the Mozambican government asked the international community for humanitarian relief, Peter Pretorius couldn’t ignore the call to see where he could help. His first stop was a village called Pambarra in the Inhambane Province. He was only meant to be there one day but ended up being stranded with no food, water or supplies. Witnessing and experiencing just a small part of this misery and despair, it became his mission to provide food relief to those in need.

Together with his wife, Ann, Peter founded ForAfrika: a Nutritional Feeding relief-focused organisation. ForAfrika’s first shipment from South Africa was 80 tons of supplies to Pambarra.

For more than 30 years, ForAfrika has served the children of Africa

Using sustainable interventions, ForAfrika’s mission is to provide food security, nutrition, water and sanitation to vulnerable communities in Africa in dignified and sustainable ways. They run a host of programmes in Angola, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, and Uganda. In 2020, ForAfrika assisted an estimated 3,925,000 people.

They currently have five active programmes to provide the necessary aid to communities in need.

Here’s a brief look at three of them:

Emergency Response Programme

In the case of emergencies, ForAfrika has an emergency response team who are ready to be deployed at short notice. The team is made up of trained technical specialists, with specialisation in emergency food assistance, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and humanitarian logistics.

ForAfrika coordinates with governments at both national and local levels and participates in the United Nations cluster system to reduce the duplication of efforts and ensure all people in need receive aid.

After ForAfrika has attended to an emergency, they work alongside the community to enable early recovery. Their goal is to transition the situation from an emergency response to rehabilitation and recovery as quickly as possible so that communities can rebuild sustainable livelihoods. ForAfrika also helps the affected communities build resilience to future emergencies through agricultural rehabilitation, complete value chains, and support to small-holder agricultural market systems.

WASH Programme

Amongst providing food and nutrition security to those in need, ForAfrika also has a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme, which focuses on providing access to safe water and sanitation. Through WASH, they aim to improve overall health and hygiene practices and in turn, reduce child and maternal mortality rates.

“Women and girls are disproportionately affected by the water crisis and access to safe water close to their homes means they can spend more time pursuing other productive activities such as education and livelihood activities instead of time-consuming chores like collecting water.” – ForAfrika.

ForAfrika currently run their WASH programme in Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Uganda.

ForAfrika’s Food Security and Livelihoods Programme

ForAfrika’s Food Security and Livelihoods Programme is realised through agricultural development. By the end of 2015, ForAfrika had equipped more than 900 micro-farmers with the knowledge, tools and practical experience to manage and run their own backyard and community gardens.

“This programme extends to every ForAfrika-supported Early Childhood Development centre, where we encourage beneficiaries to grow their own food garden to further supplement the children’s nutritional needs and provide an ‘outdoor physical classroom’ to help them learn.” – ForAfrika.

Here’s how you can help

As you can see, ForAfrika have been and are making a huge impact on our continent. That’s not to say that they don’t do it without any help. If you think there’s anyway in which you can help, whether it be fundraising by running a marathon, supporting a current campaign they’re currently running, or simply donating, head over to ForAfrika.org to see how you can get involved.

What is the Naked Difference and how does it make Naked different from other insurers?

When you see or hear “Naked Difference”, Corporate Social Investment might be what comes to mind. But it shouldn’t. The Naked Difference isn’t the icing on the cake as far as social impact goes. The way we’ve built Naked means that causes benefit directly from the way we do business. We’re on a path to do good in an otherwise grudge-purchase industry.

We take a flat fee upfront to cover running costs and profit. The rest of the money goes towards claims, with leftover premiums at the end of the year paid to causes our clients choose. This is different from other insurers, who take the leftover money as profit: we’ve removed the conflict of interest completely. This is the Naked Difference and it changes everything about insurance.

We’re really passionate about telling people about the Naked Difference and who it supports, so we’re featuring our causes to share what they do within South African communities.


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