Excellent! - excellentdevelopment.com

Simon Maddrell was in the middle of his A Levels when he realised he couldn't ignore the urge to do something to help improve water supplies in Africa.

He set up a charity called "Harambee '85", meaning "pulling together", and took a "year out" to make plans.

In 1984, he met Joshua Mukusya, an agriculturalist, from Kenya, and together they organised a youth expedition to Africa to build dams and water tanks.

In six months, Simon and his team had raised £32,500. Coincidentally, the morning after Bob Geldof's Live Aid concert, the group set off for Kenya. Four weeks later, they returned home, having helped to build two dams, six barrages and 70 water tanks, which collected rainwater from corrugated iron roofs.

Radio One DJ Peter Powell and his Producer Chris Lycett dedicated the whole of their weekend show to reporting on the project, spent a week with the community.

Simon has described this expedition as "the start of a beautiful friendship" with the area and its people. Having changed his educational plans to study development, he returned in 1988 to help build a medical centre and more water tanks. He also did a socio-economic study of the area, which he used for his degree dissertation. Unable to get work in the sector, he started a commercial career.

He returned again though in 1995 with a team of 12 disadvantaged young people from Forest Gate, London. They raised £50,000 to build 25 water tanks and roof 15 houses. They also built 2 sand dams. The expedition was the Winner of The Times Education Supplement 'Overseas Project' Award 1995.

During a trip to Kenya in 1997, Simon and Joshua talked about the priorities of the community after almost 20 years of development work in the area. Whilst water is always a priority in semi-arid areas, the project had been responsible for building 8,500 water tanks and 120 sub-surface dams and there was a need to look towards what else could be done. Over the last 30 years population growth had contributed to massive deforestation, which exacerbates the problems of the semi-arid environment. Joshua and Simon felt that it was time to couple the dam building with a tree-planting programme, which would contribute long-term benefits to the local environment and the people who lived there.

After taking voluntary redundancy in January 2001 from a successful career in corporate management, Simon decided to meet his promise to fund a pilot scheme for Joshua to plant 2,000 trees. After a fruitless search for a job in the charity sector, he realised that the answer lay right under his nose.

“I felt it was a terrible waste that Joshua had no support for his outstanding work. My development and environmental economics educational background gave me a passionate belief in Joshua’s model of development – both socially and technically. I realised what potential there was to grow this idea and that’s what I should help him to do,” Simon explained.

In May 2002, Simon founded Excellent Development, supported by its three Directors, Stephen Owen, Chris Pockett and Darren Worsley. In November the same year, Excellent achieved UK Registered Charity Status and launched its website.

Balancing setting up the charity with temporary consultancy roles to earn money, Simon built the charity at some speed. With a turnover of £9K in its first year, followed by £18K and then £80K, the charity has £135K income in its first 6 months of 2005/6.

Simon received some recognition for his work in 2003 and 2004 when he was "highly commended" after being nominated for the Beacon Prize, awarded to individuals for "exceptional philanthropic acts" and "giving of time, leadership, money, skills and ideas".

In many ways the story has gone full-circle. In 2005, Excellent Development partnered with Quest Overseas to run youth expeditions to support our work. As well as raising vital funds, Simon hopes that it will help to breed a new generation of people committed to Excellent’s unique approach of environmental protection driving development.