About Us

About the David James Foundation

In 2005, David James visited the country of Malawi along with Rio Ferdinand and Gary Neville as part of an initiative by the Football Association to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS. What he saw there inspired him to found the David James Foundation.

After bringing together a small UK team including agricultural expert Nick Rew as head of project management, the David James Foundation established a farming centre in Blantyre, South Malawi. This centre is where we hold a majority of our trial tests to investigate the best farming practices. This includes improving irrigation, new crops, selective breeding and better use of seeds and fertilisers. The centre is based at the site of the Samaritan Trust in Blantyre so that our work can benefit this charity too.

Since 2005, the David James Foundation has expanded. We now have also have a team based in the UK, headed up by David, Nick and UK trustee Steve Astbury.

Over time we have developed a strong team in Malawi. We have three dedicated trustees – Frank Chibisa, Benard Esau and Frank Kamphoni; you can see Frank’s interview in our video gallery. At our farming centre in Blantyre there are two project managers who oversee our research and workshops. Charles and Joseph organise and carry out the trial tests as well as recording and relaying the results to our UK based team. Joseph’s video in the video gallery explains in more depth about the tests that have been carried out recently at the centre.