WellFound

Who we are

ABOUT US

Why WellFound was formed:

In 2005, Howard Measham (our founder) witnessed the suffering and hardship faced by disadvantaged communities in Romania due to lack of clean water. This led him to place several of his own properties into a trust – the Measham Family Christian Foundation – solely to support relief work through the provision of clean water. Since then, WellFound has focussed its work in Africa, where the need is equally great. Rental income from the properties in trust now supports all administrative and operational costs in the UK, and also provides match-funding for work in Africa. This allows us to commit to donors that 100% of their money will go towards work in Africa with no deduction for administration or salaries in the UK.

You can listen to Howard speaking about why he formed WellFound here.

Our principles:

We follow these three principles in our work:

• Partnership – we work with communities, local organisations and also with other religious establishments to ensure the projects we do are sustainable;
• Equality – based on our Christian principles, we provide services for all, irrespective of their race, gender or beliefs;
• Commitment – we commit to communities to maximise the opportunities given to them, and we commit to our donors that 100% of their donations are spent on projects.

What we do:

WellFound provides a holistic and comprehensive programme of activities for the remotest villages in Africa. Our work includes:

• Installing wells. Depending on the soil conditions, wells are dug up to 25 meters deep. Hand pumps and solar pumps are installed with community support.
• Providing community latrines. We empower families to have their own family latrines. We do this by carrying out a Community Led Total Sanitation programme (CLTS) which ensures that the community understands the importance of safe sanitation.
• Organising market gardens.  Once communities have access to clean water, they have new opportunities to grow vegetables for their own consumption and also to sell. A market garden improves both  their health and their wealth. The women of the villages are trained by our expert agricultural technicians, they are provided with tools and given guidance in selling their produce.
• Promoting good health.  We spend a lot of time with the communities we help to encourage a positive change in their habits. We work with them to show how to  keep the water clean and safe, how to improve personal hygiene and we specifically discuss women’s health.
• Ensuring equality. We work with all sections of the communities to ensure that all have equal say in their own village affairs. We believe a society that has equality in decision making and which shares responsibilities makes a huge positive impact.
• Ensuring sustainability. We help the communities to plan how to sustain and maintain their facilities. We train two young people from each village  in construction and pump repairs. Communities are encouraged to start up a “Community Maintenance Fund” which will be used to maintain the facilities. We also link local government and other NGOs to continue to support the villages.

Where we work:

WellFound operates in the very remotest parts of the countries we work in. We believe that with limited resources, greater impact can be made if we work with the most vulnerable communities. Over the years, we have worked in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau and Kenya.

Where the money goes:

100% of all donations go directly to projects with these vulnerable communities. We are able to keep up this promise as administrative and development costs are met by the Measham Family Christian Foundation. If you are able to make a substantial donation, we can dedicate this to a specific project in a specific village.