This notice explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.

We may change it from time to time, so please check this page occasionally, to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this notice.

Any questions regarding this notice and our privacy practices should be sent by email to [email protected], by writing to Self Help Africa, Westgate House, Dickens Court, Hills Lane, Shrewsbury, SY1 1QU or by calling 01743 277170.

Self Help Africa is a leading international development charity with an expertise in small-scale farming and growing family-farm businesses. Self Help Africa is a registered charity (no. 298830), part of the Gorta Group (no. 5678).

The registered address is Westgate House, Dickens Court, Hills Lane, Shrewsbury, SY1 1QU.

We collect information about you when you make a donation or place an order in our shop for Lifetime Gifts, Cards & Other Products.
We also collect information when you voluntarily complete surveys, provide feedback or sign up for our mailing lists. Website usage information is collected using cookies.

The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when.

If you make a donation online or purchase a product from us, your card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions, as explained below

We may use your information to:
• process a donation that you have made;
• process orders that you have submitted;
• to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us;
• seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
• send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about our work, campaigns, appeals and other fundraising activities, promotions of our associated companies’ goods and services;
• process a grant or job application.
We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfill our statutory obligations. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.

We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf: We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to process donations and send you mailings). However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties beyond the Self Help Africa Network for them to use for their own direct marketing purposes, unless you have requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.

When you are using our secure online donation pages, your donation is processed by a third-party payment processor who specialises in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us.

We may transfer your personal information to a third party as part of a sale of some or all of our business and assets to any third party or as part of any business restructuring or reorganisation, or if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our supporters and customers. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive direct marketing communications from us about the difference your support is making, and information on ways to get involved, then you can select your choices by ticking the relevant boxes situated on the form on which we collect your information.

We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted. You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us by email: [email protected] or telephone on 01743 277170.

The accuracy of your information is important to us. We’re working on ways to make it easier for you to review and correct the information that we hold about you. In the meantime, if you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us at: [email protected], or write to us at: Westgate House, Dickens Court, Hills Lane, Shrewsbury, SY1 1QU. Alternatively, you can telephone 01743 277170.
You have the right to ask for a copy of the information Self Help Africa holds about you.

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely. Any sensitive information (such as credit or debit card details) is encrypted and protected with 128 Bit encryption on SSL. When you are on a secure page, a lock icon will appear in the address bar of most web browsers. Additionally you should see “https://” at the beginning of the websites address.

Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.

We may analyse your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information relevant to you. We may make use of additional information about you when it is available from external sources to help us do this effectively.

Use of ‘cookies’

The Self Help Africa website uses cookies which are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow websites to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to store your country preference.

Cookies help us to improve our website functionality – for example, by ensuring that users can find what they are looking for easily – and to deliver a more personalised service

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. For more information on how to switch off cookies on your computer, visit our full cookies policy. Turning cookies off may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.

As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (“EU”). This may happen if any of our servers are from time to time located in a country outside of the EU. These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the EU. By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing. If we transfer your information outside of the EU in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in April 2018.