THE NEW AFRICA FUND CONGRATULATES 2022 GRANTEES

The New Africa Fund is pleased to announce the first recipients of its Venture Philanthropy Grant Program. The goal of the VP Grants is to assist organizations with a clear mission and a track record of achievement the time to grow and become sustainable.

This first year, the New Africa Fund evaluated over 100 applicants from 21 countries during a four-month selection process. Two exceptional organizations were selected out of this pool of applicants to receive this funding.

The New Africa Fund’s first class of VP grantees are:
The Iriba Water Group and The Agati Community Library. 

Iriba Water Group is a Rwandan-based social enterprise that provides clean and affordable water to communities, institutions, and homes in Rwanda and Goma (East Congo). Iriba was created by a young Rwandan change maker, Yvette Ishimwe, in 2016. It started as a self-funded social enterprise that later received an accelerator grant during her last year in university.

 Iriba installs eco-friendly water ATMs and kiosks in urban and peri-urban marginalized communities and schools to enable low-income individuals to access clean water. Consumers use reusable water bottles and cups to avoid disposable plastic bottles, helping communities address environmental issues as well. 

Iriba has seen tremendous growth in the past 2 years. Through their water purification and distribution models, Iriba has reached more than 300,000 people, established 74 Tap&Drink ATMs in schools and communities and 120 Tap&Drink ATMs in homes, supplied more than 1000 filters, and created jobs for 68 individuals who are now earning a living wage.

Iriba's goal is to become a global leader in providing innovative and sustainable solutions, addressing the scarcity of affordable, clean, and safe drinking water to all communities in need. Through the NAF VP grant, Iriba aims to achieve digital transformation of all processes including digitalization of quality monitoring of its water systems, gain the capacity to manage huge commercial packages, and create new revenue streams.

Agati Library is a community-funded library in the Musanze district in northern Rwanda. It was founded by a group of six friends who grew up together and wanted to help other young people in their community rise above the challenges they experienced. Thanks to their shared love of reading, they worked together to start a community library. For three years, the Agati library was 100% community funded before getting their first small-scale grant in 2022. Agati has a physical library open for all children to use for free and runs a "Moving Library" and a "Radio Read" project, where children read their favorite books on the radio.

The library has grown to have an average of 2,500 monthly visits. It has also grown from having only around 100 books at the start to now having over 6000 books in English, French, and Kinyarwanda. The programs are run by young volunteers who commit their time as librarians or facilitators for the reading sessions, the Moving Library, the radio recording sessions, and other types of community outreach. 

They will use the VP grant to scale up their mobile library and they will revamp their radio program with the goal of airing 48 programs a year. They are also working with the New Africa Fund to improve the overall administration of the library as they continue to grow and to make sure they are developing sound policies and practices for the protection of children. 

The New Africa Fund is proud to support these organizations and the remarkable people running them. Over the next two years we will share stories about their progress, successes, and challenges. 

If you would like to help the New Africa Fund support our VP Grantees or any of our grantees please click here. 

***The application process for the 2023 Venture Philanthropy Grant Program is now open and we will be accepting applications until March 1, 2023. We will be holding an open information session for this and all funding opportunities with the New Africa Fund on January 23, 2023. If you or anyone you know is interested in attending this online session please click here.  


Happy Holidays and a Joyous New Years,

The New Africa Fund