Our History
A Liberian Catholic Priest and two young conservationists founded the Save My Future Foundation in 1987. They established SAMFU Foundation out of love for sustaining Liberia’s natural resources and the environment, as well as the country’s cultural heritage, and the desire to preserve them in order to enhance development and promote peace.
The environment where we are working is constantly changing. Liberia’s civil war saw catastrophic mismanagement of Liberia’s natural resources under past administrations. With this legacy in mind, the international business community and the government of Liberia have established a structure as a means of managing incoming concessions in the Extractive Industry Sector. While the country is politically stable, There are new challenges in the natural resources management and Extractive Industry Sector.
In 2002, SAMFU Foundation began its forest advocacy campaign in the country when unsustainable logging practices reached it highest peak as a result of bad governance in Liberia.
Our Mission
SAMFU undertakes series of programs to achieve it’s overall purpose. SAMFU’s mission is to promote partnerships with environmental organizations, the Liberian government and the local communities to ensure a sustainable management of Liberia’s natural resources.
We educate local people how to use natural resources of Liberia for the economic and social well-being of the whole community. Our charity also monitors the activities of multinational companies in Liberia to ensure that they meet government standards for the care and employment of their workers. Sustainability is at the heart of all our projects.
SAMFU is committed to sustain peace in Liberia. We train staff and target communities to ensure effective participation in promoting peaceful co-existence in Liberia through conflict prevention and transformation in the extractive industry sector.
SAMFU empowers staff and coastal communities to ensure effective participation in promoting the long term survival of endangered marine species and sustained recovery of depleted stock.
SAMFU plays a major role in the sustainable management of Liberia’s natural resources. SAMFU works in a strong network to ensure that the management processes are participatory, transparent, accountable, and peaceful
- Respect for human rights
- Engage in activities/acts that are environmentally friendly
- Participatory decision-making and shared leadership
- Transparency and accountability
- Support peaceful co-existence and development
We achieve this by:
Learning – Recognize the power of learning in improving human resources and organizational capacity. We are committed to engaging the learning resources of our organization, NGOs’ network, donor’s support in line with the needs of the target communities and clients.
Innovation – We strive to empower individual staff and encourage individual and organizational creativity to advance the mission of our organization.
Diversity – We work towards capturing the strength that derives from honoring diverse people, perspectives and programs; we think and act inclusively.
Collaboration– We value partnership and teamwork based on thematic issues that advance the achievement of our programming objectives.
Flexibility– We are open to change and willing to pursue new knowledge directions to meet changing societal needs in relation to institutional expectations and environmental sustainability.
Integrity– We are committed to demonstrate ethical and honest behaviour in everything we do.
Discipline responses– we strive to build a culture that is focused and determined and systematically persist in achieving our goals.