In December 2018, Vision Africa Give a Child a Future became Raising Futures Kenya! For 17 years, our organisation, known as Vision Africa, has managed and supported life changing programmes across Kenya for some of the most vulnerable children, young people and families. Our founders John and Vera Packard chose the name Vision Africa Give a Child a Future, not knowing just how successful the charity would be and how many years the charity’s work would continue for.
Almost two decades since the charity was founded in 2001, our fundamental goal of supporting the most vulnerable children and young people in Kenya remains unchanged, though our projects and our strategic vision has become more focused and refined. Over the last 17 years we have monitored the impact of our various projects and come to learn what really works and where we, as an organisation, are best placed to provide solutions. After a period of reflection, review and planning for the future, with our teams in the UK and Kenya and the support of our founders John and Vera, we made the exciting decision to re-name the charity with a name we feel reflects the ethos and intentions of the chairty going forward into the future. When we asked Vera for the one word she would use to describe our work, she said ‘futures’. From this, Raising Futures Kenya was born.
Since I joined this charity in April 2018, I have been in awe of the incredible community of supporters that this charity has. John and Vera, followed by Deborah and Kirsty, along with our Kenya team and UK Board of Trustees, have built something truly extraordinary over the past 17 years. I feel privileged to be at the helm as we enter this new, very exciting phase of life and I look forward to continuing to work together with you all to reach our shared goal – for all children and young people in Kenya to break the cycle of poverty and inequality and fulfil their potential.
A team effort
We have been extremely lucky to have had support from a group of talented and generous volunteers in helping us through this process. In the initial stages we were very lucky to have a team of volunteers via Media Trust – Josh, Miruna and Mark. Over the course of a couple of months, the team helped with the process of review and brainstorming and eventually, picking our new name!
From here, we enlisted the amazing team at We Are Neo who generously agreed to design a new logo and visual identity to match our snazzy new name, for free! Nick and Alissa worked together to present two options for us to consider, they were both incredible, but there was one clear winner. As a small charity, design work of this calibre is usually out of our reach, so we are incredibly grateful for the support we’ve received from the team at Neo.
From here we enlisted the help of graphic designers, web developers and brand specialists to help us put the cherries on the cake! We’d like to say a special thanks to designers Alex Batten and Tim Hanstock, web developer Rob Dove and Dee Russell from Studio Republic.
This is how many volunteers it takes, plus many others behind the scenes, for a small charity like ours to achieve something of this scale. We are incredibly grateful and as always, in awe of the good in people.
Questions?
If you have any questions about our transition from Vision Africa to Raising Futures Kenya, I’d be very happy to answer them. Simply drop me an email at vic@raisingfutureskenya.org.uk .
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