Somerset charity has helped women in Africa for 25 years

A charity from Somerset that promotes healthcare for women in Africa is celebrating 25 years of work.

Chase Africa is based on a farm near Frome, but works in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda by bringing birth control and healthcare to women in rural communities.

Robin Witt founded Chase Africa after visiting his wife’s family in Kenya and noticing that the local forest was disappearing.

Mr Witt said: “Environmental health and human health are very interconnected. When climate change is making this big impact on their life, we think our work is crucial in giving people a much brighter future.”

After founding the charity in 2000, they got involved in community tree planting projects in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

“I realised this unmet need for family planning was a thing which kept people in poverty and was having an impact on the environment as these local people really relied on the local forest for their timber to cook with and it was slowly disappearing,” Mr Witt said.

The charity shifted focus towards educating men and women in those countries about birth control and healthcare.

“To begin with it there were a lot of myths and misconceptions, especially from the men. But times are changing. People can’t keep dividing their land between large families,” Mr Witt said.

“All we want to do is empower women to give them the chance to choose how many children they want to have.”

Harriet Gordon-Brown, CEO of the charity, said there has been a shift for women in Kenya in recent years.

“It doesn’t take much to persuade women that they want to time the space between pregnancies,” she said.

“When it comes to changing cultural norms, you’re only going to do it through discussions.”

She added that while being a small charity can be good because it makes them “nimble”, they are also now running into funding difficulties.

“There’s been enormous cuts to international aid,” Ms Gordon-Brown said.

“The funding available has been limited and that has implications.”