Small-scale farmers are the frontline response to the world’s environmental and social crisis.
Smallholder farmers play a crucial role in establishing sustainable food systems locally, fighting hunger and malnutrition in their communities. When conditions allow them to earn a living, they stay on the land, and they protect it as the foundation for their livelihoods and culture.
We support smallholder farmers with organisation, knowledge and new farming methods.
Our sustainable agriculture concept, Farmers’ Clubs place farmers and their families at the centre of farming activities. Farmers meet, learn and support one another in finding common solutions to the challenges they face. The clubs develop ethical, sustainable production and regenerative farming practices that farmers can implement together in their communities, in harmony with nature.
Farmers’ Clubs support farmers to increase food production and build their resilience to climate shocks through enhancing climate awareness and building knowledge, understanding and skills around climate change impacts.
We work together with some of the communities most at risk and hardest hit by climate change to strengthen their resilience. We engage with them in climate resilience actions targeting local capacity building, raising local participation, diversifying livelihoods, and building networks and alliances.
Farmers’ Clubs are found in Africa, Asia and Central and South America. They have changed lives for hundreds of thousands small-holder farmers and their families.
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| Find out more about the Farmers' Clubs programme |
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Farmers' Clubs Each Farmers’ Club is organised around 50 or so members, men and women, who jointly make decisions and take actions. Clubs can be informal or formally registered and they also have opportunities to create co-operatives or join other farmers’ organisations, which means they can benefit from shared structures and financing opportunities. Project Leaders often live and work among the farmers. They are part of the community and work with the farmers and the clubs.
The clubs are a way for farmers to get together to share their knowledge and experiences. They work together in demonstration fields, have meetings and lessons and they arrange field days and agricultural shows, sharing with the whole community. Protecting the environment is a matter of course for Farmers’ Clubs, as they depend on living in harmony with nature. The clubs strengthen the relationship between farmers’ groups and public and private agricultural institutions in the local area through two-way sharing of knowledge and long- term collaboration. The Farmers’ Clubs are also linked to local government structures, which add expertise and help extend the project’s impact beyond its time. Farmers’ Clubs extend into the social and cultural lives of the farmers and their families. They improve the participation of women, and they care for health and nutrition, disease prevention and sanitation, as well as protection of land rights. It’s a programme, which is flexible and adaptable to local climatic, cultural and financial conditions. |
Our Community Development programmes take place in communities where life needs to improve. We support social cohesion and together we find opportunities to create progress.
We support people and communities across the globe to build strength; help to organise people in local democratic structures and get the skills, knowledge and understanding they need to make changes together.
In our Community Development projects in rural areas in Africa, Asia and Central and South America, the local Action Group is a main structure. In rural areas they are Village Action Groups, and in urban settings similar Action Groups are created with appropriate names.
We value each individual as a socially embedded agent, who live in their communities and flourish fully only by actively participating in political, economic and social affairs of their societies.
Our Action Groups places the control of development processes and decision-making into the hands of the people who are affected. People get together, identify their needs, decide on actions to take, and chart a course whereby both persistent issues and newly discovered problems can be acted on and lives improve.
Our Community Development projects aligned with local development needs. People in the community are involved in assessing the specific needs they have. A project typically runs for three to five years, long enough to create lasting impact and sustainability.
| Find out more about the Child Aid programme |
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Child Aid Programme Child Aid is our approach to integrated community development. Child Aid supports children, parents and the whole community to work together to improve living conditions for children, creating opportunities for them - not only for survival but for developing their full potential. Child Aid is community-driven and places the control of development processes and decision-making into the hands of those who are affected.
The Village Action Group is the fundamental organizational structure in Child Aid. We value the Village Group with its frame which gives people an opportunity to create a forum to hold discussions, plan common tasks, acquire new knowledge, identify challenges, and find and implement solutions together. Activities contribute to an improvement of food security, promote good health, solve basic water and sanitation problems, create better education conditions, and organise care for the sick or children in difficult situations. They form local savings and lending clubs to support family economies. It is essential to form alliances with children themselves, as they are a force of development in their families. Our Child Aid programme works closely with children, supporting them to know their rights, so they take an active role in safeguarding and upholding them. Child Aid supports children and families to secure birth certificates; children without parents are enrolled in schools and monitored so they do not drop out; and children affected by HIV and AIDS and other illnesses receive support in accessing medical treatment. The Project Leader often resides in the community and plays a key role in making it all happen. Child Aid can easily be adapted to suit different situations and contexts facing a community. It is often a starting point for further development programmes, from tackling the spread of communicable diseases to building education and income generation projects. |
Our health programmes begin with people and not with disease; we respond to how people live their lives.
We believe starting with people and not the disease, we can provide a community with the foundation to make the right choices, so individuals, families and communities can stick together in becoming and staying healthy. At the same time, we help keep an open line to the most recent scientific and medical advances, both in terms of knowledge and access.
Humana People to People’s health projects have always built on the active participation of the people to gain control of HIV and AIDS, TB, malaria, malnutrition, as well as non-infectious diseases. The approach is community-centred and people-led as it organises, supports and strengthens people’s responsive capacities.
We work closely with public health systems in implementing health programmes and strive to complement and support national health development strategies. Local clinics, nurses and doctors are among our most valued partners in our health projects.
A healthy population is instrumental for sustainable development. Our members contribute to Health for All strategy and UN SDG 3 by implementing HIV and AIDS, TB and nutrition projects.
Since 2000, our members have reached over 23.6 million people across 12 countries in Africa and Asia, connecting them with HIV and AIDS information, services and support needed to live healthy and positive lives.
| Find out more about TCE, TC TB, TC Malaria |
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Total Control of the Epidemic - TCE Humana People to People’s HIV and AIDS programme, ‘Total Control of the Epidemic ‘(TCE), is centred on the idea that “Only the people can liberate themselves from AIDS the epidemic.”
Our programme is based on person-to-person mobilisation of people for HIV testing, referral for treatment and support for those on treatment so that they never miss it. In hard-to-reach areas and with key at-risk populations such as girls and young women, building up a good relationship with the community is key. Our teams of community-based project staff and volunteers provide access to HIV testing, often in the privacy of people’s own homes, reducing stigma. And we connect people affected by HIV and AIDS with family and community-based support groups. As soon as a person has been diagnosed with HIV, they connect with healthcare providers to start treatment and follow-up. Local authorities are engaged to strengthen connections and services between communities and the healthcare system. Everyone tested is counselled on risk factors and risk reduction, encouraged to take a proactive approach towards their sexual health and connected with appropriate services as necessary. In alignment with the UNAIDS 95-95-95 strategy, our members work to make sure that people know and understand their HIV status. And that those who test HIV positive receive the sustained treatment they need, with the ultimate aim of suppressing the virus. TCE has been so successful that the methodology behind it is also being used to detect cases of tuberculosis (TB), and to support people infected with the disease to get treatment and complete it until they have been cured. TCE started 20 years ago, and since then, our members have reached over 23.6 million people across 12 countries in Africa and Asia, connecting them with the information, services and support they need, depending on their HIV status, to live healthy and positive lives. In 2023, our TCE mantra has been repurposed as a COVID-19 slogan: “I will not get it – I will not spread it”. All our projects and programmes started campaigning, so that people would protect themselves and each other in any way possible. With active participation across every level of society, it’s harder for Covid-19 to reach each one of us, and that is where the battle must be won. At the time of writing, we still await the rollout of the protective vaccines. |
Education is the foundation for peace, solidarity, inclusiveness and sustainable development.
Education must be inclusive, engaging and participatory in their methods, relevant and purposeful in their content, and develop students' knowledge, understanding, and agency to address 21st century challenges.
We seek to inspire and complement public education, so that teachers, students, parents, education institutions, education officials and Ministries of Education can draw from direct and indirect collaboration with the Humana People to People education institutions and projects.
Our approach to students and learners of all ages is to create the conditions for them to learn the basics and encourage them to develop into agents of change.
In our programmes of primary education, teacher education and technical and vocational training, as well as informal education, we see that students, regardless of their background, are willing and able to build their knowledge and understanding and use it for taking action, when the kind of programme they need is established.
We engage students to address real life issues together, with an abundance of interactive methods of study, action research, group work and practical activities has proven to be a solid foundation for life-long learning.
Through our education projects, we support people in developing the vision and capacity to contribute to development, for themselves, their communities and the nation.
Our education programmes encompass children’s education for the marginalised and those living in difficult circumstances; empowerment of girls and women through education; vocational training programmes including both formal and short skills training courses promoting socio-economic development;
Our teacher training programmes target rural and peri-urban communities across Africa and Asia that educate teachers, who are committed to overcoming barriers to meaningful education.
| Find out more about the Teacher Training programme |
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Teacher Training Since 1993, Humana People to People has trained more than 64 000 dedicated teachers to work in public primary schools across Mozambique, Angola, Malawi, Guinea Bissau, Zambia, D. R. Congo and India. Training lasts between one and three years and schools are mainly boarding schools, with the exception of those in India.
Humana People to People pedagogy is being practiced across schools and training programmes, in 82 educational institutions and 178 other teaching and learning projects. It is also being practised in training activities within other thematic areas. Students are organised in a group together with their core group teacher. Here individual Through our education projects, we support people in developing the vision and capacity to contribute to development, for themselves, their communities and the nation. |
For more than forty years we’ve collected, sorted and sold second-hand clothes. This gives good clothes a longer lifespan and the sales proceeds support development projects across Africa, Asia and Central and South America.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMME
Our second-hand clothes collection contributes to reduction of waste, saves precious resources through reuse, provides affordable clothing to people in both hemispheres - and it ultimately enables us to undertake invaluable development work.
Our goal is to ensure that all clothing and footwear is used in the best possible way for the benefit of people and environment.
Our second-hand clothes system is a people-to-people system. There is close contact between the sorting centres in Europe and the clothes sales projects in Africa.
In 2023, we generated 24 % of the funding for social projects from our Humana People to People second-hand clothes trade.
| Why second-hand clothes industry matters and Humana People to People's approach |
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Collection and Sales of Secondhand Clothes We collect second-hand clothes through shops and collection bins in high footfall locations. The reasons people get rid of clothes vary – mainly, changes in size, fashion, or need. Many appreciate that their unwanted clothes may hold great value for someone else.
The clothing is sorted and assessed in dedicated sorting centres; some clothing is sold in second-hand shops in Europe and North America, while other reusable items are sent for further sorting and sale in Africa and Central America, including Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea Bissau, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Belize. Second-hand clothes donated to us go on to benefit millions of people. Our process means that good quality clothes become accessible to people who wouldn’t ordinarily be able to afford them. Across Africa, our wholesale operations are located in both urban and rural areas, with shops often found in cities. All over the world, as awareness of the negative environmental impact of the fashion and textile industry grows, people are turning to second-hand clothes as a better way forward, reusing clothes rather than buying them new. 12.2 million people bought second-hand clothing from our shops across Europe and USA in 2023. People are turning to second-hand clothes as a way to help protect the planet, rather than buying new clothes. The second-hand clothes business creates jobs. In Europe, the Middle East, and the USA, 6 400 people work in collections, sorting centres and shops. They take good care of the collected clothes and make sure each item is put to the best possible use; reuse and recycling. 16% of the clothing collected is sent to our members in Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia in Africa and Belize in Central America. These clothes are the basis for 110 000 jobs in logistics, sorting and sales in these places, either as formal employment or in the informal sector linked to the trade and handling. Building business capacity through on-the-job training is a side effect of this job creation. To Humana People to People, transparency is an integral part of the operation. We follow what happens with the clothes, and we document it. The clothes are followed from the point of collection, through sorting centres and further on to the next customer. |
