Fieldstone Collective
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Programmes
Three programmes, and the things each of them refuses to do.
Fieldstone runs three programmes. Each one is deliberately narrow, each has published limits, and each was added only when the work would no longer fit inside an existing one.
Programme 01
Rural Learning
A rural school does not fail for want of a building. It fails when the teacher leaves, when the rains close the road, and when the textbook arrives in a language the class has never spoken at home.
Community-governed schools, a paid teaching fellowship, and learning materials in the languages children actually think in.
- Running since
- 2009
- Regions
- Kenya, Guatemala, Nepal
- Programme lead
- Wanjiru Mbatia, Nairobi
- children enrolled at partner schools
- 61,400children enrolled at partner schools2025 academic year
- teachers in the Fieldstone fellowship
- 1,240teachers in the Fieldstone fellowship
- of fellows still teaching after five years
- 88%of fellows still teaching after five yearsagainst a district baseline of 41%
- languages of instruction supported
- 9languages of instruction supported
Programme 02
Sustainable Livelihoods
Almost every rural community we work in already runs a savings system. The useful question is rarely how to introduce one, and almost always what it is currently unable to survive.
Savings groups, cooperative processing, and market access built on the financial institutions rural households have already invented.
- Running since
- 2014
- Regions
- Zambia, Indonesia, Morocco
- Programme lead
- Priya Kandel, Kathmandu
- savings groups in partnership
- 318savings groups in partnership
- households in member cooperatives
- 24,700households in member cooperatives
- held in member-owned reserves
- €2.1Mheld in member-owned reservesnot held or controlled by Fieldstone
- median gain on stored harvest vs. gate price
- 2.4×median gain on stored harvest vs. gate price
Programme 03
Community Infrastructure
The failure rate of rural infrastructure is not an engineering problem. It is a maintenance-funding problem that engineering is repeatedly asked to solve.
Water systems, footbridges, and small solar grids, designed around the maintenance a community has committed to before construction starts.
- Running since
- 2017
- Regions
- Morocco, Nepal, Kenya
- Programme lead
- Isaac Mwangale, Nairobi
- systems handed to local committees
- 47systems handed to local committees
- people with year-round water access
- 84,000people with year-round water access
- of handed-over systems still functioning
- 91%of handed-over systems still functioningmeasured at five years, 2025 audit
- median annual maintenance cost per system
- €200median annual maintenance cost per system
What connects them
One agreement, three kinds of work
Every Fieldstone programme is delivered under the same ten-year partnership agreement, signed with an institution the community already had. The programmes differ in what they fund; they do not differ in who decides.