World Report

he Lwini Fund for Social Solidarity is an Angolan-based non-profit NGO that provides aid to victims of landmines. An initiative of Angolan First Lady Ana Paula dos Santos, the Lwini Fund was set up shortly after Princess Diana visited the country in 1997 and alerted the world to the critical situation of landmine victims in Angola. The Lwini Fund finances social projects aimed at supporting landmine victims and improving both their physical and social mobility. Although much has been done to clean up in Angola since the peace agreement in 2002, estimates of the total number of landmines that are still to be cleared range between 6 and 20 million. Consequently, the Lwini Fund also works with rural women, according to its Vice-President Joana Lina Baptista, who says that women in rural areas represent the segment of the Angolan population most at risk of future accidents.

Since its founding in 1998, the Lwini Fund has established partnerships with a number of other NGOs, such as the National Association of the Handicapped, and has entered into partnerships with private sector donors like Chevron Texaco, with whom the Fund operates a wheelchair distribution project. Lwini has also established schools for the handicapped, participated in the rebuilding of a regional orthopaedic centre, and developed agriculture projects for providing employment. The Fund is also currently financing a diagnostic study to identify ways of stimulating rural development in order not to leave the general community behind. Ms Lina comments, “We want this organization to act above all as a catalyst for social development and to participate directly in that development. Everywhere that we happen to travel for a specific landmine victim project, we also investigate what it is that the community needs, be it a school or health services, and we try to help them achieve that.”