Zambia HIV/AIDS Leadership Forum

The Purpose

In August 2005, 15 leaders from Lusaka NGOs came together as the First Cohort to share, learn and drive sustainable change. Following the success of the pilot, the United Nations has agreed to fund the Second Cohort through the Zambia National AIDS Network.

In January 2006, the Second Cohort was run in the Copperbelt Province for 25 emerging leaders from across the spectrum of HIV/AIDS activities.

Why Impact?
It is important to share an insight into Impact's motivations, and to address questions such as "Why is Impact doing this? What’s behind it? Why would a commercial organisation of this size invest so much of it’s profit into this kind of project."

The following is a message from the Managing Director of Impact, David Williams:

This is not about philanthropy, volunteering or donating.

The Zambia project is one of the most fundamental and significant initiatives we have ever undertaken at Impact.
In this one project we are living the values of Impact, and demonstrating them to our people, our clients, our community partners and beyond.

This is not merely an attempt to feel good from doing good, but a clear demonstration of our belief and expertise in community engagement as a methodology for developing people and inspiring positive change in the world.


For the people of Impact, the Zambia project is designed to:

- Help us to live our values
- Make a real difference to the people involved
- Inspire our clients and partners
- Build our organisation globally
- Help us to explore a sustainable business model for our future
- Provide a model for best practice in Community Action Programmes
- Attract global development funding to continue this work
- Provide our community partners with valuable assistance
- Help us further our commitment to the UN Global Compact
- Provide a powerful development opportunity for our people

I believe this is the first of many incredible opportunities that we will be creating to develop Impact in a sustainable way through further involvement with our communities.

David Williams