How we work
A Community Health Worker talks to a patient at an outreach clinic organised by our local partner, Kalyet Afya Foundation
CHASE Africa supports established local organisations in East Africa who are already working closely with rural communities.
We provide financial, technical and organisational development support to enable them to either start up and implement community health programmes, or to incorporate Sexual and Reproductive Health into their existing health programmes, integrating activities with their other work where possible. We also facilitate learning across the different local partners that form the CHASE Africa partner network.
Our local partner, Save the Elephants, combines healthcare and conservation messages in community dialogues
Our partnership model
CHASE Africa provides its local partners with financial support through grant funding, alongside technical support and advice. We also support the organisational growth of all our partners. We enable our partners to launch and then strengthen their programmes. By bringing our local partners together, we have created a vibrant and strong network and forum for learning.
The CHASE Africa Partner Network enables partners to tackle common challenges together, share experiences and learn from best practices through exchange visits, webinars and our annual Partner Network Conference. The network has become a powerful and valued forum by our partners.
Staff from The Maa Trust visit Dandelion Africa as part of an exchange visit
Our local partners
CHASE Africa has supported 14 local partner organisations in East Africa to improve the health of women, families, communities, and their natural environment.
The size of our partners varies from small CBOs to large NGOs. Many of the organisations and projects that CHASE Africa has supported are long-standing partnerships, and they have grown in parallel to CHASE Africa’s own growth. These organisations are now well established and are deepening their impact. Other partnerships are more recent. We aim to grow our Partner Network by expanding the work of existing local partners and forming new partnerships.
CHASE Africa staff and staff from our local partners at the CHASE Africa partner conference 2023
An holistic approach to community development
Our approach has been to identify existing organisations who already have strong links with local communities and who work in areas where there is a need for improved access to health services. They may be working in other sectors (such as conservation, community development or alternative livelihoods) or providing other health services. We support them to set up a community health programme that reaches remote, underserved communities. We partner with organisations who are trusted in their communities and who have developed positive connections with local people, who understand local cultures and have connections with key local stakeholders.
Influencing and advocacy
As well as supporting local partners to directly implement programmes, one of our strategic aims is to influence other organisations to integrate health programmes into their work, especially those that tackle women and girls sexual and reproductive health. To this effect, we have written a guide for conservation organisations that has been shared widely, have invited several other conservation organisations to our partner conference to learn about our work and have presented our work at conferences. We aim to build a toolkit of resources for other organisations, in order to widen our impact.
