CHASE Africa (Community Health and Sustainable Environment)

CHASE Africa’s vision is of healthy, empowered communities living sustainably within their natural environment. The organisation works to improve access to healthcare and remove barriers to voluntary, rights-based family planning for remote rural communities in East Africa.

CHASE Africa was founded in 2000 and was originally called The Rift Valley Tree Trust (RVTT). Its initial objective was to encourage tree planting initiatives around the shrinking Mau Forest in Kenya. Whilst undertaking these projects, CHASE Africa’s founder realised that many of the women living in the region were trapped in poverty, partly due to the number of children they had. From discussions with these women, it became clear that many of them would rather have had fewer children. Limited knowledge and a lack of access to any form of modern contraception meant the women simply had no ability to choose how many children to have or any way to space their pregnancies. It became obvious that in order to help families escape poverty and reduce long-term pressure on the forest to provide for these families, it was necessary to address this huge, unmet need for family planning.

In 2012, the RVTT changed its name to CHASE Africa (Community Health and Sustainable Environment) to reflect a shift in direction. CHASE Africa began to support primary healthcare and family planning programmes in remote, rural areas, initially supporting one partner, Communities Health Africa Trust (CHAT).

Over the past 14 years, CHASE Africa has grown substantially. It currently works with 13 partners (eight in Kenya and two in Uganda, and three in Tanzania), several of whom it has supported to set up community health and family planning programmes. Through its partners it has delivered over three hundred and twenty thousand family planning services and almost a million basic health care services. Its partners have raised awareness about health and family planning to many of the communities they work with. Whilst undertaking this work, CHASE Africa has developed substantial knowledge on how to deliver community health and family planning programmes effectively. It has also built the capacity of its local partners and shared best practice across its partner network, including learning from its own projects, as well as sharing wider evidence and research.

All the while, CHASE Africa has not lost its original environmental focus. Its programmes take place in rural areas, where many people depend on depleting natural resources for their livelihoods, where ecosystems are fragile and biodiversity is under threat. Many of

CHASE Africa’s partners undertake environmental activities, as well as health and family planning.

We work through partnerships with local organisations, many of which are community-based conservation organisations working to protect biodiversity and manage natural resources. These partners are deeply embedded in the communities they serve and lead initiatives such as forest and rangeland restoration, human–wildlife coexistence and climate change resilience.

CHASE Africa envisions communities where women’s health and rights are upheld. We aim to break the cycle of poor health and poverty by scaling up our programmes, strengthening local health systems and expanding access to healthcare services.