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West Africa 4×4 was set up in part to support our own charity work and raise funds on every car we sell: St George Foundation rescues homeless children in Sierra Leone, and has given a home to over 1500 children to date but supported in some way many thousands in total. (Though West Africa 4×4 and St George Foundation are totally separate and independent of each other.)
During Sierra Leone’s Ebola outbreak, St George Foundation took a lead role to home Ebola orphans cast out by their communities and was recognised internationally for their care in very difficult conditions for over 2500 of the 8000 children orphaned by the disease.
St George Foundation presently has spare capacity at our centre and could help more children if we had the funds — nothing would please us more than to be working at full capacity!
St George Foundation works equally for children irrespective of their religion and hires staff accordingly: by their skill level. We are never biased one way or another. We presently have spare capacity at our centre due to funding so your support will make a real and immediate difference to the work we undertake!
Learn more about St George Foundation on their website.
Thank you so much if you do this!
For each and every car sold on this website we will donate $500 to the St George Foundation (although on some low budget vehicles the donation is $250 if stated on the advert).
However, if you’d like to send your donation directly to the charity this is also possible: Send your $500 (or more!) donation to the St George Foundation direct into their bank account, and then let us know and we will take $500 off your invoice for each vehicle.
You will receive a thank you from St George Foundation for the donation.
We acknowledge that for some reason you may wish to give the $500 donation elsewhere and we are willing to consider this as an option on a case by case basis.
Running our own charity – we know that money is always an issue and coming up with $20,000 or $30,000 may be a huge ask but we can’t just fix up a 5 year payment plan with a bank – yet. But buying a 15-year-old vehicle for $10,000 and having it fail may cost more money in the long run and disrupt the delivery of your service. It must be better to invest in a newer cleaner and more reliable car from the outset.
Below are some ideas you may want to consider or perhaps a combination. But please be assured that we are happy to cooperate and will do our best to provide any information you may find useful to achieve your investment.
Supporters are often keen to raise funds for a capital investment and purchasing a vehicle is a good opportunity for them to offer their help. You can share the details of your vehicle with your supporters to raise awareness via the link on the vehicles page.
We found some of our own supporters very willing to help by loaning us money when we were developing our buildings; they could see it made sense and we have now paid them all back.
There are now many crowdfunding platforms and they are worth investigating. One that has been very useful for us is JustGiving, but there are many others too.
We are actively pursuing ways that part of this payment can be delayed either by providing an extended settlement period or by monthly payments. Having approached funders for some time it is now clear they don’t want to lend for cars on projects in Africa (refusing even a $50 million p/a charity for a $20,000 vehicle). When we eventually find a funder willing to step up it is highly likely that funding will only be available to certain organisations and secured by trustees. But ask us about this as we never know when we get a breakthrough and we can tackle it case by case.
Nothing is better than having a supporter visit your project, but a really professional film of your work is the next best thing. Back in 2007 a team that drove from the UK to Sierra Leone filmed their journey producing a little piece on our charity work that captured us brilliantly.
The team was led by a filmmaker Jonathan Richards.
To help raise awareness for your own charity we regularly give a feature spot for charities that have purchased a vehicle to provide an opportunity to share your work and hopefully find new supporters or partners. This is for free and when you purchase you can submit a small piece.
The simplest way to buy vehicles fit for Africa but fit for the future with Carbon offset as standard.
In fact JMC manufacture the Ford Territory, the Transit van, the Torneo van, and the Everest SUV all under the Ford badge.
We have chosen to promote just one vehicle for now – their pick up – the JMC VEGUS.
Among all the vehicles we have seen – if you just need a value for money workhorse we think that this is a real contender.
It shares the Puma engine that has been in the Ford Transit for years, the London taxi and the Land Rover Defender to name a few, so the engine is well tested. The Vegus also shares a Ford Transmission system, Ford suspension so this is not an unknown vehicle really.
Comes with a healthy guarantee and we are having the vehicles made to order so we can request the fuel system can work with the local African fuel quality and you will enjoy a fuel system capable of handling the not so great fuels available in Africa.
Foton really stand out as the Chinese brand that seems to have had more than other Chinese brands and successfully trading in Australia, New Zealand, most of South America and Asia.
Surprisingly, they are not that Chinese actually…They use Cummins diesel engines, Getrag Ford make the transmissions, Borg Warner make the transfer case and Dana make the axles.
Owners find them good value for money and they will eventually become a worldwide and well-known brand supplying pick-ups, SUVs, mini buses, trucks, tractors and coaches.
Buy them new and they compare in price to many more well-known brands when second hand and come with a healthy guarantee.
At West Africa 4×4 we are delighted to be able to supply them and see them as a great option if you need a vehicle for a project and you don’t have a huge budget.
At the moment we are working on each order on a case by case system and very happy to provide a live quote for your particular location and need, so feel free to ask the questions you have.
A transparent off the shelf transaction, on a budget, we are combining maximum quality with the confidence and expectations associated with some of the most trustworthy names the industry.
It minimises exposure for your organisation, saves time and resources, and knowing that both car and dealership are excellent you can confidently expect the car to have a good working life ahead. The cars are in stock and West Africa 4X4 can deliver them to you at a more cost effective rate than arranging it yourself.
Before being presented by a main dealership, all the vehicles offered were carefully chosen to start with and have passed a thorough test and servicing procedure. Looking great and knowing they are mechanically sound, you really can just choose the one you want and place your order. We will then secure it for you, sort the paperwork, the shipping, and have them delivered to West Africa.
West Africa 4X4 is committed to working at the highest ethical and quality standards and the principal of having vehicles thoroughly examined means we don’t expect unwelcome surprises later on. When you ‘Browse all vehicles’ you will see others professionally vetted and scored – note that we only offer the ones that scored 5/5 mechanically, but for peace of mind and about $150 you are welcome to have a vehicle retested.
Regarding commercial vehicles the procedure is slightly different by providing a final vetting (to the same standards) as part of the purchase procedure.
