Mulago

We looked at over 800 incredible social entrepreneurs this year - these are our top 8, with solutions to climate and conservation. So excited to hosting them in Morocco later this month for our annual fellows retreat!

And now say hello to our 2024 Henry Arnhold Fellows. These eight remarkable leaders have scalable solutions for conservation and climate. We sifted through a lot of organizations to find these unstoppable leaders with some very big ideas. Take a look: Bustar Maitar at EcoNusa Foundation: Co-ops to link communities to markets for pro-forest products in Eastern Indonesia. Dickson Kaelo at Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association: Collective action for community-led conservancies to bend the curve of biodiversity decline in Kenya. Ines Serra Baucells at BIOSORRA: Conversion of agricultural waste into biochar fertilizer to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Kenya. Jade Saunders at World Forest ID: A scientific standard for verification of plant product origins to eradicate illegal deforestation exports. José Monteiro at ReGeCom: Collective action for community-led conservancies to create thriving ecosystems and communities in Mozambique. Peter Bosip at Centre for Environmental Law & Community Rights: Legal support to enforce territory rights and protect the environment in Papua New Guinea. Shantanu Agarwal  at Mati Carbon: Enhanced Rock Weathering to make smallholder farmers more climate resilient in India and Africa. And last but not least… Solange Bandiaky-Badji at Rights and Resources Initiative: A global coalition to advocate for rights to land and resources for indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant peoples, and local communities. As fellows they’ll each receive money ($100K) and a lot of support and connections. And they’ll join us and our Rainer Arnhold Fellows for the main events — a couple of week-long design and strategy retreats. This year's retreat is in Morocco. Take a look - they'll give you a much-needed dose of optimism for the years ahead.

Here’s a sneak peak of our 2024 Rainer Arnhold Fellows. We could go on and on about what a big deal it is — we looked at over 800 organizations this year — but let’s focus on what matters: their big ideas tackling poverty. Folake Owodunni at Emergency Response Africa: Emergency transport of the right people, to the right places, at the right time in Nigeria. Klau Chmielowska at Lafiya Nigeria: Rural distribution of self-injectable contraception to decrease maternal mortality in Nigeria. Maia Ramarosandratana at Projet Jeune Leader: Scripted sex education for better life outcomes for rural young adolescents in Madagascar. Nasser Diallo at Clinic+O: Public-private-partnerships to provide professionalized community health + telemedicine to get high quality healthcare to people in Guinea and beyond. Neo Hutiri at Pelebox: Smart lockers for chronic medication distribution to improve health for people living with chronic illnesses in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. Lydie Hakizimana at Happy Hearts: Play-based early childcare to get kids ready for school in Rwanda. Irene Etyang at AfriFORTIFIED : Microfactories-in-a-box to increase income for rural women farmers in Kenya. Jonathan Mazumdar at Growth Teams: Government adoption of effective industrial initiatives to make economic growth happen in low income countries. Safiya Husain at Karya: Fair pay for the capture of AI training data to improve livelihoods of poor people in India. Utkarsh Saxena at Adalat AI: AI-powered translation and transcription for courts in India to end judicial delay. As fellows they’ll each receive money ($100K) and a lot of support and connections. And they’ll join us for the main events — a couple of week-long design and strategy retreats. This year's retreat is in Morocco. If our track record holds then these are the ones to look out for. They're doing remarkable work and are on the path to make lasting change, at big scale. Start following them now.

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I’m thrilled to announce that CassVita is now a part of Mulago’s portfolio. In addition to being added to the portfolio, we had a wonderful time hosting the Mulago team in Cameroon a few weeks ago for 4 days. As per our tradition, we welcomed the team with donuts made from fresh cassava flour that had just come out of our facility! We then had a working session on CassVita’s operations, leveraging frameworks from Mulago’s Design Iteration Format (DIF). In addition to touring our processing facilities and laboratories (lab pictured), we visited our farmers and heard from them firsthand how CassVita is creating prosperity in their communities! We even harvested some cassava! 😍 We ended the trip with an audience from the Ministry of Commerce where we discussed advancements made towards import-substitution and their impact on the national trade balance. What I love about our work is that it has both grassroots impact (on farmer revenues) as well as macroeconomic impact (on the national fiscal position). We are excited to continue our partnership with Mulago, who was one of the first funders that believed in us, and are looking forward to contributing to our shared mission of creating prosperity at scale for vulnerable communities! #sustainability #impact #mulago

🗯 SmartStart South Africa are a new addition to the Mulago Portfolio 🗯 They get quality learning to kids through home and community-based centers. Early learning plays a huge role in future success. Structured play is a great way for kids to acquire crucial cognitive, social, and emotional skills. SmartStart South Africa — led by Grace Matlhape — trains and equips women to run play-based early learning centers in homes and community spaces, and in the process provide daycare and aftercare for working parents. The women who run the centers receive comprehensive content, program guidelines, and materials and each center offers structured, play-based learning daily in homes and community spaces like churches and schools. Compared to national averages, 19% more SmartStart kids reach standard early learning milestones. SmartStart South Africa kids also perform 25% better on early numeracy, and 10–12% better on early literacy and fine motor skills. Welcome to the Mulago portfolio. Learn more at the link in the comments. 

🥁 Ujamaa Community Resource Team are a new addition to the Mulago portfolio 🥁 Land is life and freedom for hundreds of thousands of indigenous pastoralists and hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, but it’s under constant threat from economic and political interests. Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT) — now led by the irrepressible Paine Mako — are pioneers of a community-driven approach to formally secure, manage, and protect land in a way that sustains and improves people’s ability to make a living from it. They start by mapping the landscape: capturing population, resources, and all their uses within an ecosystem. Then they bring communities together to negotiate boundary agreements and facilitate participatory land use planning. Communities can then secure formal legal tenure and rights over land and resources, preserving existing livelihoods while finding additional eco-friendly ones. UCRT’s highly effective model for securing tenure has generated a lot of interest and they’re influencing the pack of community-led conservation groups that are thinking deeply about livelihood solutions. Welcome UCRT to the Mulago portfolio! Learn more about them at the link in the comments.

🎉 Today is the day! 🎉 Applications for the 2025 Lipman Family Prize are now open! 🏆 This is your chance to be recognized for the good work that your #nonprofit is doing and to highlight your organization's leadership, impact, innovation, and transferability. Prize winners receive not only monetary awards, but also invaluable non-monetary benefits including tuition-free executive education and access to a growing community of innovators and thought-leaders at the University of Pennsylvania and The Wharton School through this partnership. The application is open to local, national, and international nonprofit organizations that meet our eligibility criteria. The deadline to apply is Friday, July 26th, so don’t miss out! 📅 Learn more and apply here: bit.ly/Lipman25 #Lipman25 #Leadership #Impact #Innovation #Transferability #Nonprofits #ApplyNow University of Pennsylvania | The Wharton School

Really excited that Shamiri is part of the Mulago portfolio family. One thing Mulago — and Kevin Starr — has made us realize is that scale only happens when our idea reaches it's full potential, otherwise we are only losing slowly. Excited to continue building a future where young people can thrive!

🗣 Shamiri Institute is a new addition to the Mulago portfolio 🗣 In Sub-Saharan Africa, 50% of youth face mental health challenges, and in Kenya alone, 5 million young people suffer from mental health disorders. Many adolescents have little-to-no resources to turn to. Shamiri Institute — led by Tom Osborn — has developed an effective, low-cost solution to this problem by tapping into the power of adolescent peers. Their school-based, group intervention is delivered by recent high school graduates and helps high schoolers build resilience to tackle the everyday stressors of poverty and improve their mental health. The beauty is Shamiri Institute’s approach seamlessly integrates into high school settings. They recruit and train recent graduates to deliver an evidence-based curriculum focused on growth mindset, gratitude, and value affirmation to groups of adolescents. Between sessions, students deepen their understanding through thoughtfully designed take-home exercises. Clinical supervisors provide oversight to ensure that more severe cases receive the necessary attention. We’re excited to support Shamiri Institute’s mission to provide effective mental health solutions and improve the lives of young people in Sub-Saharan Africa. Welcome to the Mulago portfolio. Learn more in the comments.