Initiatives We Support

Comic Relief is involved in a number of exciting, year-round initiatives and projects that help to create real and lasting change.

Every one of them is crucial in raising awareness of important social issues and they ultimately work towards transforming the lives of poor and vulnerable people in the UK and across the world.

Send My Friend to School
Time to Change
Fairtrade
Robin Hood Tax
See Africa Differently
Awareness Raising in Africa
Africa UK
FRICH
Send My Friend to School

Send My Friend to School

In 2000, leaders from around the world made a promise that by 2015 every child, no matter where they live, will have access to an education.

A lot has been achieved since 2000, however, 67 million children still don’t have the opportunity to go to school - and an education is the single most important tool they need to overcome a life of poverty.

Send My Friend to School has brought together hundreds and thousands of teachers and students in the UK to hold our government to the promise they made a decade ago. It has developed some brilliant methods of educating young people about the importance of getting an education and has helped them to get their voices heard and make a difference in the world.

Find out more and see how you can help at www.sendmyfriend.org 

Supporters of the Time to Change initiative.

Time to Change

Although 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience mental health problems at some time in their lives, there remains a huge stigma around this issue. Many people struggle to find work and take part fully in their communities as a result.

That’s why Comic Relief has given £4 million to Time to Change for the period 2011 to 2015. It’s an innovative and ambitious campaign led by mental health charities Mind and Rethink which aims to end the stigma and discrimination experienced by those who are living with mental health problems.

It’s also the biggest initiative of its kind ever undertaken in England, and the first project in the world to actively try and change people’s behaviours – and not just attitudes – towards mental ill health.

Time to Change involves a wide range of projects, including a national marketing and media campaign, community activity and events, and targeted work with children and young people and Black and Minority Ethnic communities.

You can help to fight mental health discrimination too. Get involved at www.time-to-change.org.uk 

Fairtrade

Fairtrade

Comic Relief supports small scale farmers and workers in some of the world’s poorest countries to grow and develop Fairtrade produce.  Our support to the African Fairtrade Network has helped to increase the number of producers who are certified as ‘Fairtrade’ across the whole of Africa.

Fairtrade is all about making sure producers receive a fair price for their produce. As a concept, it also focuses on creating better working conditions, local sustainability and fairer terms of business for farmers and workers.

As part of our commitment to Fairtrade, we fund TWIN, an organisation that supports people so they can make a living from Fairtrade. We’re also a big supporter of Liberation Nuts, which helps Fairtrade nut producers across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Plus we developed ‘Dubble’ with Divine, a Fairtrade chocolate bar that went down a treat. And if that wasn’t enough, we also manage the Sainsbury’s Fair Development Fund. It’s an initiative which aims to create a broader and more collaborative way of supporting Fairtrade. Thanks to it, there are now more Fairtrade items on supermarket shelves.

Robin Hood Tax

Like most brilliant ideas, the Robin Hood Tax is incredibly simple.

By introducing a tiny tax on the financial transactions carried out by banking institutions, a phenomenal amount of money would be raised to tackle poverty and climate change in the UK and the world.

The tax is so small that it certainly wouldn’t break the bank – it equates to 50p for every £1000 – and yet it could generate billions for good causes every year.

This money could be used to change the lives of millions of people. It could be used stop cuts to public services, to help end extreme poverty, to tackle climate change. In fact, it could do all these things and a lot more.

We are a supporter of the Robin Hood Tax and its growing army of merry supporters who are calling for the world’s governments to implement it.

To find out more and join us in calling for a tiny tax with massive potential, visit www.robinhoodtax.org.uk 

See Africa Differently

Let’s celebrate Africa; a continent with 54 countries, over 1 billion people and many, many stories to tell!

At See Africa Differently we share the good news from the continent, with interviews, articles, competitions and more - all showcasing the very best in African culture, entertainment, sport and innovation.

From food and fashion to plays and politics, there’s something for everyone. You’ll also find content which surprises you about Africa – under-reported progress on gender equality for example.

Get talking about Africa: Our website flashes fascinating facts across the top of the page- and they are all less than 140 characters - meaning you can impress your friends with your amazing African tweets! You can have this tweet for free... Did you know that Nigeria’s ‘Nollywood’ produces more films every year than Hollywood? #fact #seeafricadifferently

Follow us on Twitter @see_africa and you’ll also have the chance to contribute to See Africa Differently, enter competitions and find out more about how Africa is on the rise!

Like us on Facebook where one competition winner received an all expenses paid trip of a lifetime, visiting Malawi’s Lake of Stars music festival – and reporting back on our behalf.

Join us on Pinterest where we are curating the finest African content on the web from art and design, photography, film and much much more.

Watch and rate our films – some were written and directed by Richard Ayoade of The IT Crowd and The Mighty Boosh on YouTube and see some surprising pics on Flickr.

Help us spread the good news – and Open Your Eyes to Africa.

 

Awareness Raising in Africa

Over the past 25 years, Comic Relief has been instrumental in raising awareness of some important issues that many people across Africa face.  This project helps us to continue that work.

Using the global popularity of football as a springboard, we’ve helped to gather together some of Africa and England’s top football stars to produce a series of educational films.

Tackling key issues in Africa ranging from HIV/AIDS to education, each short film uses humour to communicate a serious message and educate people about what they can do to help themselves, their families and their communities.

Our films are screened in over 30 different countries throughout Africa in slots between UK Premiership football matches and reached a weekly audience of around 300 million viewers.

Africa UK

Africa UK

The UK is home to thousands of people of African descent who have made their home here but who retain emotional, financial and cultural links with their country and with the African continent. This movement is sometimes called the African Diaspora - people who might be united by a shared commitment to tackle poverty and injustice in Africa, and who have the skills and knowledge to make a difference. This is where Africa UK comes in!

Africa UK aims to mobilise this great force, using the collective skills and unique local knowledge of the African diaspora to tackle poverty and injustice among communities in Africa and bring about lasting change.

Africa UK also helps people to use their experience and speak up with authority about the issues which African communities face. By doing so, they can also influence the best, most effective, ways in which UK agencies can make a difference across the continent.

Africa UK is part of the Common Ground Initiative - a grant-making, influencing and learning programme supporting the contribution of African Diaspora which is a joint project between Comic Relief and the Department for International Development (DFID).

Get involved now! 

Sopacdi coffee farmer ©Tim Dirven for Oxfam Fairtrade

FRICH

Comic Relief has formed a consortium between Twin, an organisation that supports people to make a living from Fairtrade, coffee roaster Finlays, and the retailer Sainsbury’s as part of the DFiD Food Retail Industry Challenge (FRICH) initiative. FRICH provides investment so that funds from the private sector can be used to support smallholder coffee farmers in Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In Malawi, it has supported farmers from the Mzuzu Coffee Planters Co-operative Union to trial new, more sustainable agricultural techniques. The pilot started with 97 farmers and has led to sustainable farming methods being widely used by small-scale Mzuzu farmers. This has meant organic certification is now a real possibility at Mzuzu, which means that the farmers could potentially earn more from their coffee crops.

In the east DRC, conditions for growing coffee are ideal, but the production of it is limited and inefficient. The consortium has worked with the Sopacdi Coffee Cooperative to develop, launch and promote a Congolese speciality grade coffee to be sold in the UK. This three-year project is giving up to 3,200 coffee farmers and their families the chance to make a living out of growing coffee.

Find out more about how FRICH is supporting African farmers.