About Us

Seeds for Development was founded in 2007 by Alison Hall, together with 3 friends - Tamsin Miles, Julie Brennan and Amanda Giles, when, after hearing an inspirational talk by Ugandan businesswoman Josephine Okot, she had an idea to sponsor a farmer, in rather the same way you might sponsor a child through school.

Now (April 2013) run by Alison with Sally Varley, the charity supports more than 1,200 farming families in Uganda.

With no previous experience of Africa, charity work or agriculture, here is a little information about the two of them!

Alison Hall – I have over  20 years experience in marketing, strategy and business development.  I am currently a Marketing Manager at IBM and have extensive experience in managing large budgets and complicated projects involving multi-cultural teams from around the globe.  I was inspired by Josephine's talk and decided to put this experience to some good! I live in the UK with my 20 year old son, dog and two cats.

Sally Varley – I am delighted to be involved with Seeds for Development as I believe the knowledge, skills and resources we have in this world should be shared. I am a qualified bookkeeper and treasurer of my local Fair Trade shop. I come from a musical background and enjoy singing in various choirs.

Whilst we work directly with the farmers, we do not have staff or infrastructure on the ground in Uganda and so we work in partnership with the charity Send a Cow Uganda supporting their farming groups, who are also looking to move into commercial farming, or to earn enough money to pursue other income generating activities. Send a Cow Uganda is so much more than cows. They run long-term education programmes and provide support to the most disadvantaged people in Uganda. Their programmes cover social development, organic farming and caring for livestock. We join them at the point that the farmers graduate from the programme and move into income generation.

Seeds for Development is more than charity