What progress have you made since your last update?

In November 2024, we began our second Fundamentals Programme cohort, accepting 19 participants out of over 400 applicants. This programme ran until January 2025, providing participants with the knowledge and skills for effective animal advocacy. Overall, the programme was a success and received positive feedback from participants. Participants rated all programme components and weeks as “very valuable” and “extremely valuable” in our end-of-programme survey, and indicated improvements in their knowledge, skills, motivation, and network to help farmed animals in Africa.

Currently, 10 of these participants are completing the Advanced Programme, running from February to April 2025. They are developing detailed plans for new and impactful animal advocacy projects across seven African countries, including:

• Improving water quality on tilapia farms in Ghana

• Addressing JBS's $2.5 million expansion plan to establish six new factory farms in Nigeria

• Advocating for improved animal welfare legislation in Kenya and Ethiopia

• Advancing cage-free initiatives through radio campaigns in Nigeria and corporate outreach in Zimbabwe

• Collaborating with farmers to improve the welfare of chickens in Namibia

• Increasing the accessibility of alternative proteins in Zimbabwe

What are your next steps?

The Advanced Programme is nearing its end. Participants are required to submit their final project plans by the end of this month. Afterwards, we’ll decide which projects will receive seed funding, supported in part by grants from Manifund and other sources.

Is there anything others could help you with?

To keep our training programme running, we’ve begun fundraising to close the gap in our 2026 budget: 

• $160,000 for general programme expenses, including research, outreach, operations, and travel

• $20,000 for participant stipends, 

• $90,000 for grants to promising initiatives, both to seed new projects and to help launched projects overcome funding constraints.

We welcome additional financial support from partners and donors. In addition, we’re beginning some exploratory work to map out high-impact career paths in Africa beyond working at animal advocacy nonprofits and nonprofit entrepreneurship. Our goal is to identify opportunities that could significantly improve farmed animal welfare and help mitigate the rise of industrial animal agriculture. If you have any ideas, feedback, connections to experts or support that you think we should be aware of, please let us know!