About us
Background
Knowledge for Change (K4C) was registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales in January 2012 (no. 1146911). Our charitable objectives are to improve the standard of healthcare and education provision for the poorest members of society in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). For over 17 years, we have been working across multiple public hospitals and health centres in Uganda and Tanzania to incrementally and sustainably improve health systems and achieve better standards of care for patients. The work we do includes running programmes along the lines of our 'Co-Presence Principle', placing UK-trained and NHS-registered professional volunteers to work alongside our in-country K4C healthcare staff and partners to facilitate exchange of knowledge between staff and services, staff training days and series, and capacity building activities. We also work with local educational institutions to develop new and improved undergraduate and postgraduate curricula, organising staff exchange programmes to the UK, and running ethical and educational elective placements for students, the provision and repair of medical equipment, and sometimes small infrastructural developments.
Core Values
K4C’s core values centre around making ethical, sustainable and mutually beneficial improvements to health and education systems. We believe that the best way to do this is through the transfer of knowledge between professionals and students working in the health and education systems in order to improve their skills and capacity. Sticking to these values ensures that we achieve the best long-term outcomes for all the High-, Middle- and Low-Income Countries that we work with.
What We Do
Global Health Research
K4C endeavours to remain at the forefront of Global Health Research and has been closely involved with several research projects and publications, in partnership with the University of Salford. All K4C projects are designed to be dynamic and are closely monitored and evaluated in order to maximise their impact and cost efficiency. Research findings have been shared through policy reports, books and journal articles as well as regular presentations at conferences, workshops and with British and Ugandan government officials.
International Projects and Ongoing Programmes
K4C has run numerous international development projects and ongoing programmes over the years including sustainable volunteering, infection prevention and control, antimicrobial stewardship, cervical screening, developing a high dependency unit, promoting respectful maternity care, biomedical engineering, building accessible toilets within schools and supporting the Uganda Blood Transfusion Service, amongst others. Our main donors have included NHS England, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) (previously known as UK Department for International Development), Global Health Partnerships (THET), the Burdett Trust for Nursing and Wellbeing of Women Foundation. Many projects are run in partnership with academics, professors and technicians working at the University of Salford, where our UK office is based. All of our work is deliberated over, designed and evaluated in line with our core values of sustainability, ethics and mutual benefit.
Professional Volunteering
K4C ’s primary activity has included the placement of over 300 professional volunteers from High-Income Countries in Uganda and Tanzania over the last 10 years, initially supported by the UK Department for International Development through the Tropical Health Education Trust. These volunteers have included doctors, midwives, nurses, biomedical engineers, allied health professionals, social workers and social scientists; all of whom have worked alongside local staff to exchange valuable knowledge, skills and experience to the mutual benefit of both countries. We have also supported over 50 Ugandan and Tanzanian health workers to travel to the UK to complete training courses and degree programmes to enhance their learning, funded by the British Commonwealth Fellowship Scheme.
Student Placements
More recently, K4C has begun to focus on the improving the education of students through undergraduate and postgraduate student exchange programmes. Our student placement project (initially supported by Health Education England) has now placed over 540 students in Uganda and Tanzania from courses including medicine, nursing, midwifery, the allied health professions, social work, prosthetics and orthotics and business. All student placements are linked to K4C’s ongoing development projects and are supervised by our highly competent team of professional volunteers and local staff. Our current student placement locations include large hospitals, rural health centres and community-based organisations in Kampala and Fort Portal (Uganda), as well as Moshi and Zanzibar (Tanzania).
Trustees
Annual Reports and Accounts
K4C Trustees Annual Report & Accounts (Dec 2024)
K4C Trustees Annual Report & Accounts (Dec 2023)
K4C Trustees Annual Report & Accounts (Dec 2022)
K4C Trustees Annual Report & Accounts (Dec 2021)
K4C Trustees Annual Report & Accounts (Dec 2020)
K4C Trustees Annual Report & Accounts (Dec 2019)
K4C Trustees Annual Report & Accounts (Mar 2019)
K4C Trustees Annual Report & Accounts (Mar 2018)
