Creating opportunities for women: Natracare backs the Equal Roots Fund

Approx. 3 min read time

By Hannah Denyer, Philanthropy and Partnerships Manager at Ripple Effect

In January, Natracare became the inaugural funder of Ripple Effect’s Equal Roots Fund, marking a partnership grounded in a shared commitment to gender equality and inclusive community-led change. They recognise that you cannot have sustainable change in rural Africa without empowering women.  

Natracare have three giving pillars – people, planet and product. Beyond these giving pillars Natracare operates as a Certified B Corp and has transitioned to an employee-owned company. As a certified B Corp and employee-owned business, Natracare brings both values and long-term commitment to this partnership. 

Across much of rural East Africa, inequality shapes the most fundamental aspects of daily life - who eats well, who earns an income, and who has a say in their own future. Women face entrenched barriers to land, resources and decision-making. These multiple, overlapping barriers make it harder for them to thrive. The challenges are often even greater for people with disabilities, families affected by HIV/AIDS, young people, and marginalised communities.  

The Equal Roots Fund is Ripple Effect’s dedicated response. Launched as a five-year commitment running to 2030, it strengthens inclusion across our programmes and enables more people to access opportunities, influence decisions, and build secure livelihoods.  

Through the Fund, we invest in practical, community-led solutions: accessible training, local childcare centres, youth enterprise pathways, community safeguarding, and services shaped by the people who use them. 

Over five years, we aim to raise £750,000 to support this work. Every pound invested helps ensure that the people most often excluded from opportunity have a genuine chance to thrive. 

The fund will support women like Florah, who became a widow when she was 29 and had to raise their four boys on her own. To survive, she would work on other people’s land and brew alcohol. She was often arrested and her children would have to come with her to the police station – which they found scary.  

In 2009 Florah started working with Ripple Effect – and this was transformational for her and her family. She started to earn money and as a family they kept chickens, collected milk, and grew vegetables. Through this opportunity it meant her children could go to school.  

Florah was selected as a Peer Farmer and has trained over 5,000 people in her community. Three of her sons are now an engineer, a photographer and an electrician - futures she could never have imagined when she was brewing alcohol to pay for their next meal. "Without training from Ripple Effect, they wouldn't have gone to school."

Her farm is a model others travel to learn from. Schoolchildren, women's groups and farmers visit regularly. She sells vegetables, fish, milk, and avocados.  

Florah says “life is good” and this is the type of transformational change that can take place when women are given the opportunity to take control of their futures and are given the tools to thrive. 

Our work addresses these inequalities at both family and community level, combining dialogue, practical support and inclusive programme design. This includes a range of participatory techniques developed and refined over time. One example is Ripple Effect’s Transformative Household Methodology (THM), a highly visual approach that helps families reflect on how work and decisions are shared. During facilitated sessions, families create a simple grid on the ground using sticks and familiar objects - such as a bucket for fetching water or a hoe for farming -  and use stones or beans to map who does what, and who decides. 

The impact is immediate. Families can see how workloads and decision-making are distributed, and where women are carrying disproportionate responsibility. Through discussion, households agree practical changes to share work more fairly and strengthen women’s voice. Across Ripple Effect programmes, this approach has led to an average 164% increase in women participating in decision-making, strengthening foundations for livelihoods, food security and inclusion.

The fund will support our work on gender and social inclusion. By 2030, we expect to see more women influencing decisions about farming and household resources. We also aim to see reduced rates of violence and discrimination, alongside expanded access to safe local childcare; freeing parents, particularly mothers, to work, train and build businesses.  

Natracare has supported Ripple Effect since 2022, when they helped to fund our work in the Wonchi district of Ethiopia. We are incredibly grateful for their continued support.  

Natracare’s investment in the Equal Roots Fund is helping to build the foundations that allow women like Florah to lead, earn and inspire change in their communities for generations to come.  

The Equal Roots Fund is just beginning, and we hope more organisations and supporters will join us in helping build a future where opportunity is shared more equally across rural communities. 

If your organisation shares these values and would like to support this work, we’d love to hear from you. For more information, please contact the Partnerships team: partnerships@rippleeffect.org or visit our Equal Roots Fund page to donate or find out more. 

Together, we can help ensure that opportunity is not limited by gender, age or disability, but shared by all.