who we are

African Solutions to African Problems (ASAP) was founded in 2003 by social entrepreneur, Priscilla Higham. While travelling through some of the most remote, poverty-stricken areas of South Africa, she was impressed by her encounters with small groups of women who had mobilised scarce local resources to begin to address the needs of orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS in their communities.

Priscilla recognised that beyond admiring the compassionate heroism of these women, lay the stark reality that these community-based groups with limited structures, expertise and connections, would not be able to access the kind of funding needed to bring their operations to scale and to deliver holistic child care programmes. She established ASAP to support these emerging organizations with incremental, long-term operational and programmatic grants as the women gained capacity at their own pace.

From the outset, ASAP has respected the considerable value of home-grown solutions. ASAP’s pioneer groups all have their own viable visions and missions. The premise of the partnership was to find viable solutions to 2 keys problems:

• How could they enhance their services to provide more holistic care for orphans and vulnerable children?
• How could they expand their operations to include increasing numbers of orphans and vulnerable children?

Listening and understanding, encouraging and focusing on strengths, responding and supporting appropriately have all helped ASAP to develop, practice and refine its 7-year ASAP Model.