Giving hope in hopeless conditions
What We Do
Youth Unemployment and Poverty
At Grassroots Outreach, we not only recognize the relationship between unemployment and poverty. We also look at the factors keeping people in poverty and create programs to address them. Over time, we have done this through the following.
a) Supporting educational institutions as well as initiating vocational training to get people, especially the vulnerable employed and improve livelihoods. These learning and leadership training programs ensure self-improvement and helps citizens to become valuable members of their various communities.
b) Liaising with local authorities to provide youth centers, training grounds and community events.
Infrastructure and Development
A core area identified as driving the rural-urban and overseas migration in developing nations is the lack of infrastructure and employment opportunities in the cities and rural communities. It is a multi-faceted issue that is driven by the lack of accessible roads, portable drinking water, health services, electricity, and learning centres in deprived communities. This lack of amenities means living conditions in these communities are unbearable and life threatening.
This situation fuels a cycle of continuous migration and the depletion of rural communities of its citizens who migrate to the cities in search for better lives. With so much pressure on services and dwindling opportunities in the cities the much-needed trained middle class is faced with no option than to migrate overseas.
Grassroots Outreach recognizes this as a significant problem in developing nations, especially in Africa, and has embarked on numerous activities to address and put a stop to it. A way to achieve this is to level up deprived communities and bring them in sync with the cities and also to make more opportunities available in the cities.
Empowerment Programs
These are activities focused on poverty alleviation, such as providing microfinance for local farmers and traders, helping neglected children or orphans get back to school, and helping farmers in rural areas get their farm produce to the markets. Also, in this category are other activities that improve the quality of life for the deprived.
Emergency/Humanitarian Relief
Although Grassroots Outreach aims at providing relief and empowerment to those made vulnerable by poverty, deprivation, and inequality in communities, we do not shy away from unexpected eventualities like natural disasters or epidemics like the recent covid-19 pandemic. A difficult time when Grassroots Outreach with the help of volunteers provided food banks and palliatives for the vulnerable and needy in various communities.
Where We Work
Grassroots Outreach is based in the United Kingdom and as such has beamed its searchlight on the inner cities where pockets of poverty can be found. Mostly affected are immigrants and others who have been put down by harsh economic upheavals. Grassroots Outreach efforts in this regard includes organising workshops, assisting in job placements and apprenticeship programs.
In line with our aim of addressing the issues that fuel rural-urban migration, human trafficking and invariably the brain drain, we are initiating programs in parts of Nigeria. The initial efforts started in Edo state in Nigeria with attention on highly deprived areas in the 18 local government areas. This state enjoys our priority because it is the most affected by human trafficking and rural-urban migration in Nigeria.
Case Studies
Our field surveys constantly report the lack of portable drinking water in all the local government areas of Edo State, Nigeria. Here individuals make private arrangements by drilling boreholes/wells, and those who cannot afford these arrangements get their water supplies from germ-infected rivers or streams. To alleviate this non-availability of safe drinking water, we have chosen 30 locations in Esan North-East local government area, where we are constructing boreholes/dug wells.
We recognize electricity as essential for any development initiative, especially in rural areas. For this reason, Grassroots Outreach has commissioned a program named 'light up’ to provide constant electricity powered by solar cells to selected communities.
Our rehabilitation initiative provides support to victims of human trafficking. We provide financial assistance and vocational training to enable those affected get back on their feet.
In collaboration with local governments, Grassroots Outreach delivers mobile health services to rural communities where we provide primary health care. It is a program that takes health care straight to the people in designated areas through mobile clinics by special arrangements with health professionals and rural chiefs.
Grassroots Outreach recognizes the role education plays in uplifting the poor and as a tool for the social-economic integration of the citizens. As such great importance is placed on education and training. We liaise with local authorities to provide schools and the necessary facilities and resources where none exist. Under this program, we rehabilitate dilapidated schools, equip libraries, internet centres, provide classroom furniture, and assist teachers.