Growth Reaching Africa Charity or GRÁ (meaning love in the Irish language) is about…Believing, Thinking, Being and Doing. GRÁ (love) is about making a positive and meaningful difference today by investing in education and development projects in rural Kenya.

1. To have positive and meaningful impact on the lives of communities in Africa
2. To mobilize the energy and grá (love) of young people and encourage them to contribute to educational and community development in Africa.
3. To promote education for the growth of future generations
4. To raise funds through donations, events, sponsorships and other innovative means for our development projects.
5. To operate as a voluntary non-political, non-religious, non-profit organization.
6. To invest in specific projects and people where we can track the long term results.
7. To partner with NGO/ CBO (community based organization) in developing and to implementing designated projects.

When Maria Butler founded Growth Reaching Africa (GRÁ), she was started simply to help a small group of girls go to secondary school in a rural community. Since then, GRÁ has improved the lives of not only those girls but thousand more through are education, feeding and community development projects school.
Maria Butler founded GRÁ when she was twenty-three years old because she had the grá – the love- that simple unexplainable motivation to do something significant to impact the lives of other.

The name GRÁ came to Maria from after returning from time as a volunteer in Kenya in 2006. After a hearty debate of the values, approaches and importance of community development and international development issues, someone remarked to Maria, “you’ve really got the grá (meaning love in Irish)!” And that off-the-cuff comment made absolute perfect sense to Maria. It was one of those ah-ha moments!

She knew that she had to follow through on having the grá (love) and she knew what she had to do. The next steps were a little harder but the motivation to use the grá (love) to have positive and meaningful impact on lives of girls, boys, women and men remains as strong today as it did.

GRÁ meaning 'love' in the Irish language represented the core and founding principle of this initiative. GRÁ also represents our full name “Growth Reaching Africa” which defines our approach to development.

The concept or principle of love we refer to is about the energy and solidarity, which are the real nucleus of development. This is about being, thinking, doing, believing and acting.
GRÁ was set up as a charity officially in 2007 with board members after operating informally as a fundraising body

In recognition of GRÁ's work, GRÁ proudly received an acknowledgment from the organisation called Africa Missions Ireland. GRÁ was nominated and received an award for 'Care for Mankind' on the 26th of July 2008. GRÁ was featured as charity of the month in a leading Irish Magazine, ‘Irish Tatler’ in November 2008.

Maria relates to the quote from Bono “As a rock star, I have two instincts, I want to have fun, and I want to change the world. I have a chance to do both.” ...Well maybe not the star part but everything else she says inspires her work with GRA and furthermore she adds that we all have the chance to do both...have fun and change the world…