Grantee Stories

Burundi is one of the poorest countries on Earth but thanks to the Centre for Development and Enterprises–Great Lakes (CDE), change is underway. CDE has helped farmers, women, and entrepreneurs break free from policies that kept the country stuck in poverty. From lifting bans on fertiliser and essential goods to strengthening women’s property rights and making it easier to start businesses, CDE is showing that economic freedom can improve lives drastically.

WFF also helps spread the message of liberty through translating key books, hosting seminars, and running advocacy campaigns. What began as a small grant from Linda Whetstone to founder Aimable Manirakiza has grown into a thriving partnership.

Find out more about CDE-Great Lakes here and here.

In November 2023, we awarded a $3,000 grant to the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) to support their Faces of Liberalism project, aimed at promoting the ideas of classical liberal thinkers in the Philippines.

FEF’s campaign simplifies and summarises the ideas of each liberal thinker to appeal to a broad range of participants, primarily students, academics, and politically engaged citizens. It is based on a series of 10 social media graphics introducing people to the key ideas of prominent liberal thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill. The campaign has already achieved impressive results, with 278,378 impressions, a reach of 164,154 individuals, 21,151 engagements, 1,073 shares, and 17,550 reactions. FEF also drew 100 participants and two scholars to a webinar discussing liberalism in the global and Philippine contexts.

Find out more about FEF here and here.

Spreading the ideals of freedom is no easy task in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where political instability, violence, and poverty are ever-present obstacles. Despite these challenges, Espoir Bindu and his CDE-DRC team have delivered fantastic results.

With the support of a $3,000 micro-grant from WFF, they led a successful outreach campaign based on the French translation of the IEA’s An Introduction to Entrepreneurship. They engaged over 1,500 students at events across five universities in the DRC, secured 800 online downloads of the book, and achieved more than 50,000 impressions on content related to the book’s ideas on social media.

Find out more about CDE-DRC here.

The Liberalist Centre for Education is a leading voice for liberty in Africa, working to train young journalists with the tools to promote free markets, individual liberty, and limited government. Through its “Journalism for Liberty Fellowship”, the Centre trains media professionals in Nigeria, Kenya, and Zambia, combining workshops, book discussions, and mentorship to build a new generation of pro-freedom voices. Fellows receive key IEA books such as ‘Foundations of a Free Society’, ‘An Introduction to Capitalism’, and ‘Ayn Rand - A Primer’ to deepen their understanding of classical liberal ideas.

With support from WFF, the Centre expanded the fellowship’s impact in 2025, launching podcasts, blogs, and explainer videos to reach over 50,000 people online. The program awarded 20 story grants to fellows for investigative journalism on liberty issues and will produce 20 podcast episodes, strengthening public debate around freedom and economic opportunity in Africa.

Find out more about The Liberalist here.

The Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR), a leading think tank in Kerala, India, is bringing ideas about how governments make decisions to a wider audience by translating ‘Public Choice - A Primer’ into Malayalam, spoken by over 35 million people. Supported by WFF, this project fills a critical gap in local-language resources on how political decision-making works, helping citizens, students, and policymakers better understand the trade-offs and incentives that shape governance.

Public Choice bootcamp, and collaborating with universities for book discussions. An online outreach campaign will target over 100,000 people, ensuring the concepts reach new audiences in Kerala and across the overseas Malayali community. Through this project, CPPR aims to introduce more informed conversations about economics and public policy in India.

Find out more about CPPR here.

Albania’s recent history has been defined by one of the world’s most tyrannical communist regimes and subsequent political instability. Their legacies still scar the nation, with its economic recovery held back by highly contentious disputes over property rights.

The WFF has been delighted to support the team at ICG Research to create change and move the country forward. With the support of a $4,000 grant, ICG is translating An Introduction to Entrepreneurship into Albanian and embarking on an exciting outreach campaign to communicate its core ideas to young people in both Albania and Kosovo. ICG will host five lectures at universities to promote the book’s message and aims to reach 100,000 people through a social media outreach campaign.

Find out more about ICG Research here.

Ominira Initiative for Economic Advancement is a Nigerian organization dedicated to supporting youth through economic education. In a country facing significant youth unemployment and economic challenges, Ominira seeks to inspire and equip young Nigerians with essential knowledge on trade, globalisation, and entrepreneurship. Their ongoing WFF-supported project involves printing and distributing two IEA primers, hosting student seminars, organizing an enterprise dialogue, and running an undergraduate essay competition. These are all designed to engage and motivate students and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Ominira’s project also features a Free Trade Fellowship Programme that engages five fellows to publish 30 articles in widely-read newspapers. The initiative leverages social media and video content to reach over 2,000 people online, broadening awareness for free trade and entrepreneurship across Nigeria.

Find out more about Ominira Initiative here.

Despite the election of a socialist to its presidency and the ongoing political repression in neighbouring Venezuela, the flame of liberty is burning bright in Colombia thanks to the work of our partners at Libertank.

Since supporting them with a $4,000 grant in November 2023, the team has translated An Introduction to Capitalism into Spanish and introduced hundreds of student to its core ideas at four key Libertank events, Universidad El Cato, LíderLab Barranquilla, LíderLab Cali, and the Pola y Libertad book launch. The team aims to continue this momentum at future events and is looking into launching an outreach campaign based on an online version of the translation.

Find out more about Libertank here.

Pakistan is one of the countries where the basic principles of individual liberty are yet to take hold in culture or politics. Political instability and geographical remoteness make teaching these ideas incredibly difficult.

But the Alternate Solutions Institute is making important progress despite those obstacles. In June 2024, we awarded a $3,500 grant to Alternate Solutions Institute to support its 16th annual residential course in Khanaspur, Pakistan. This workshop was an intensive four-day course aiming to cultivate a deeper understanding of individual liberty, economic freedom, and democratic principles among 35 young participants.

We are encouraged by how efficiently ASI executed this project, which provides yet more evidence of a very promising future for Pakistan’s freedom movement.

Find out more about ASI here.