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Current page: Home > about us > history & people History and People The origins of Excellent Development can be traced back to 1984 when its founders, Simon Maddrell and Kenyan farmer Joshua Mukusya met. At that time, Joshua had already had many years' experience of dam-building, and organising self-help, educational, health and agricultural projects in his native eastern Kenya. Simon and Joshua teamed up and together organised a youth expedition to Africa to build dams and water tanks. Further expeditions followed which paid for 140 water tanks and 20 dams. After a successful tree-planting pilot in 2001, tree planting was added to the charity's activities. In May the following year, Simon founded Excellent Development Limited, supported by its three Directors, Stephen Owen, Chris Pockett and Darren Worsley. In November 2002, Excellent Development achieved UK Registered Charity Status. Our 2002/3 income was £9K, Increasing to £27K in 2003/4. In January 2003, we employed Joshua as our Eastern Kenya Project Consultant to help develop programmes with his self-help groups in the area. In April 2005, with the registration of Excellent Development (Kenya) as a local NGO - Joshua took the role of Executive Officer (Kenya). 2004/5 also saw another trebling of income to £80K. In 2005, Excellent began its partnership with Quest Overseas - running youth expeditions to Kenya to support our work both practically and financially. This was reflected in our continued growth - achieving over £250K in our fourth year!
In January 2006, Lord Joel Joffe CBE and Sir Edward Clay agreed to become our Patrons. |
