Homes + sanitation
Cambodia
Sixty permanent homes with sanitation delivered through trusted Cambodian partners.
61°N
Distance changes what you see.
61 North works close to difficult realities — understanding environments, building relationships and turning resources into practical interventions.
02 — The idea
Proximity before assumption.
Complex problems rarely look the same from the ground as they do from a distance.
61 North works close to the environments it seeks to change — building the relationships and understanding required to determine what can realistically be done.
03 — What we do
Two ways we work.
Some problems require delivery. Others require understanding before intervention is possible.
01 — Direct development
Direct development
When the objective is clear.
Where the objective is defined, 61 North builds the local relationships and delivery capability required to turn funding into tangible outcomes.
Housing + sanitation
Education
02 — Complex intervention
Complex intervention
Clear problem. Unclear solution.
Armed violence, exploitation and displacement rarely yield to conventional programmes. Effective intervention starts with access, trust and an understanding of the environment.
Youth armed violence prevention
Counter-trafficking
Humanitarian response
04 — Selected work
A selection of 61 North's work across direct development and complex social intervention.
Education
Cambodia
Community-based education initiatives developed and delivered with Cambodian partners around local priorities.
Youth armed violence prevention
Colombia + Venezuela
A two-year intervention developed with communities and local government across high-risk neighbourhoods, combining midnight football with routes into training, apprenticeships and employment.
Counter-trafficking
Cambodia + Myanmar
Representative context
Nine projects developed with specialist organisations to prevent exploitation and support vulnerable young women and children.
Rohingya humanitarian response
Myanmar
Representative context
Humanitarian support developed through trusted local relationships for Rohingya communities affected by displacement and exclusion.
Housing and sanitation.
Education and community development.
Youth armed violence prevention.
Counter-trafficking.
Humanitarian response.
05 — How 61 North works
Where resources meet reality.
Major donors and institutions possess resources and ambition. Communities possess knowledge of their own reality. Distance between the two can create blind spots.
61 North works between those worlds.
Understand.Access.Design.Execute.
Understand the environment. Access the necessary relationships. Design around reality. Execute with accountability.
61 North operates through a lean central structure, assembling local partners, specialists and delivery teams around the requirements of each intervention.
06 — Strategic partnerships
What are you trying to change?
You bring the ambition.
We build the intervention.
Bring us a problem, a place or an objective. We assess what is actually happening, establish the relationships required and determine what can realistically be done.
07 — Leadership
Ben Gedjenin
Founder & Executive Director
Ben has spent much of his career working between decision-makers and environments that are difficult to understand from a distance.
His experience spans international development, complex social intervention and risk advisory across Latin America, Southeast Asia and the UK — from direct work in communities affected by organised violence and trafficking to engagement with government, security institutions and private-sector decision-makers.
That experience shaped the premise behind 61 North: important decisions about communities are often made at considerable distance from the realities they are intended to change.
His work sits at the intersection of people, risk, capital and ground reality.
61°N
Start closer.