About us

APCA UK raises funds for APCA's life-changing work across Africa, through grants from trusts and charities and sponsorship from individual supporters. We work to help fund particular APCA projects - improving a hospice, for example, or training nurses. And we help support key programmes, such as advocacy to get palliative care into Africa countries' national health plans.

We also promote awareness of the urgent need for palliative care in Africa. Our individual supporters raise funds through sponsored events, from running to dinner parties, or make generous donations - often having benefitted from palliative care within their own families. Their support proves that each of us can make a real difference in the lives of people who live far away.

Palliative Care in Africa

Although it enables individuals to live their lives fully and to die free from pain and in minimal distress, Palliative Care remains neglected in Africa. In 2018 25.6 million people were living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, with 470,000 AIDS-related deaths. There are half a million cancer-related deaths per year, with rates being expected to double by 2040. Few will have died a pain-free, dignified death. Often palliative care does not even feature in national health strategies for several reasons, including:

• a lack of understanding about palliative care;
• a shortage of trained professionals;
• rudimentary health and social structures;
• restrictive drug laws that limit the availability of essential pain-controlling drugs such as morphine.

The challenges are big but there's plenty we can do to overcome them; we just have to create the right opportunities.