The Akshar Trust does not see disability as a barrier to a child’s right to education.

The charity, which was founded in 1988, addresses the need to support children with hearing impairments in India. Based in Vadodara, Gujarat, it runs a school for 155 children providing a supportive and nurturing environment that encourages children to realise their academic potential.

Students are welcomed from all backgrounds and ages. They work closely with specially trained teachers who help them learn with speech training and adapted textbooks. Every school place is entirely subsidised, meaning that even those from the poorest backgrounds can access the academic opportunities they deserve.

The Akshar Trust also gives support to the families of hearing-impaired children and provides training for teachers to teach pupils at the school. Its research into the field of education for the hearing impaired has sourced innovative ways to improve their learning experience.

The Akshar Trust has changed the lives of children with a hearing disability in a country where less than 35% of deaf children are enrolled in school.

It was from a small village near Vadodara that Suleman Verjee left India for East Africa in 1872. With the Verjee family’s roots in Gujarat, The Rumi Foundation is keen to support projects in this area.

Whilst the quality of life for those affected by HIV has improved greatly, there is still a large societal stigma. Body & Soul gives people the support they need to overcome barriers that this stigma creates.

Founded in 1996 by Emma Colyer, the organisation has expanded to support children, teenagers and adults who live with and are affected by the disease.

Body & Soul provides a number of innovative services. This includes ‘Transmission Radio’ a series of podcasts for teenagers that provide music, discussions on a range of issues and celebrity interviews, giving young people a voice. There is also an online library of resources for a number of pertinent topics.

Housed in an all-purpose 4-storey centre, the charity provides a physical space for its members to feel comfortable and meet others like themselves by attending workshops and counselling sessions. Community is a key part of the ethos with young adults and teenagers who themselves are part of the programme volunteering their time to younger members.

Body & Soul fosters creativity. They provide a space for participants to create music and spoken word pieces, championing the arts as a means of expression. The results are truly inspiring. Participants are happier and more confident people becoming leaders in their communities.

Body & Soul helps those affected by HIV to face the disease and live with respect, dignity and wellbeing.

Opened in September 2012, School 21 is an innovative state-funded mixed school for 4 – 18 year olds. Taking a fresh approach to education, breaking from the traditional timetable, with “one teacher and 30 children” and a set number of periods each day, students have a mixture of lessons, seminars, lectures, one-to-one coaching and oracy and debating lessons to develop key skills to succeed in the 21st Century.

It is with this belief of innovation within education that The Rumi Foundation is collaborating with School 21 to set up a new innovative Business School for 16-19 year olds in East London.

Drawing on School 21’s teaching methods the Business School aims to create a new qualification in business for young people by focusing on entrepreneurship and real life business knowledge and skills. The school will forge strong partnerships with local and global companies to expose students to real business environments and challenge the way they think about business.

The Rumi Foundation together with Ian Davis, Chairman of Rolls Royce, and Trust 21 is supporting the feasibility study and initial research for this new school and endeavour.

Only Connect is a crime prevention charity providing a positive community – including training, support and creative opportunities – for young people at risk, prisoners and ex-offenders. Their programmes deliver support at every point in the crime cycle in order to reduce offending.

Their key ethos is that they see the people they work with as assets, not liabilities in the community, with a contribution to make to their families, communities and wider society.

Through its creative arts programme, many ex-offenders and youth at risk have the opportunity to collaborate with creative professionals on specific projects to produce high-quality work inspired, produced and performed by them for public audiences.

Key to its success is its ‘member’s clubs’ where ex-offenders and youth at risk can drop in for educational lessons, training and employment advice.

Only Connect’s model works. Their programmes more than halves expected rates of re-offending, from an estimated 57.5% without the charity to 25.9% with the charity.

The Rumi Foundation was proud to support the first ever We Day UK, which was held at Wembley Arena on 7th March 2014. Along with fellow co-chair Holly Branson, Lord Verjee welcomed 12,000 children, who could not buy tickets, but had earned their place by engaging in one local and one global charitable programme of their choice.

An initiative of the Canadian charity, Free The Children, We Day is a truly global movement inspiring children to make a difference and become active citizens. The true global reach of We Day could be seen by the amazing list of guest speakers and performers at We Day UK.

Amongst others HRH Prince Harry, Former US Vice-President and Nobel laureate Al Gore and Malala Yousafzai who survived being shot in the head by the Taliban to become a global activist for children’s right to education, all gave rousing speeches. Along with performances from Grammy Award winner Jennifer Hudson, Dizzy Rascal and Ellie Goulding it is in no doubt that everyone left We Day UK truly inspired.

Through its innovative training programme The Clink is tackling the pressing issue of rehabilitating ex-offenders in order to reduce re-offending rates, which on average stand at around 50%.

With three Clink Restaurants which have been established within HMP High Down, HMP Cardiff and HMP Brixton, and are all open to members of the public, the programme is open to prisoners within the last 6 months of their sentence and gives them not only valuable qualifications in food preparation and hospitality but much needed contact with the outside in order to boost their confidence and life skills. The prisoners gain experience in all areas of running the Restaurant from preparing delicious 3 course meals to front of house to cleaning and serving tables.

On release from Prison at the end of their sentences, graduates of the programme are mentored and given the opportunity of employment within the hospitality industry. On average, re-offending rates stand at around 50% within the prison population. Since being established in 2009, the Clink programme has had more than 100 graduates and a re-offending rate of below 10%.

Rumi Verjee & Simon Verjee attended the opening of The Clink at HMP Brixton in February 2014 and are proud to support work of The Clink.

“Ubuntu” is a Xhosa philosophy that implies human interconnectedness: “I am because you are”.

Formally established in 1999 in South Africa, Ubuntu Educational Fund had one all-encompassing, yet radical mission: to help raise Port Elizabeth’s orphaned and vulnerable children by giving them what all children deserve—dignity.

Having started by working in just one school providing educational materials, Ubuntu now operates its own 25,000 square-foot centre in the heart of Port Elizabeth’s township providing cradle to career care to township children. Believing that every child is unique, Ubuntu has its own individualised pathway to lead them to the worlds of higher education and employment, growing into healthy adults with stable incomes.

The centre encompasses the spirit of “Ubuntu” by not only providing education, but also concentrating on comprehensive household stability, health, and educational services to the local community of 400,000 people.

Following Rumi Verjee’s visit to Africa with President Clinton, The Rumi Foundation hosted a lunch for President Clinton, Secretary Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton to highlight some of the key challenges being addressed by the Clinton Foundation in Africa, including health, education, economic growth and equal opportunities for women.

It was the first time that President Clinton, Secretary Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton had hosted an event in the UK together, and among the diverse projects discussed was the creation of The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a multi-national effort to increase the nutritional value in children’s meals and the access to medicine by those suffering the effects of global disasters.

The Foundation also supported a dinner for the Clinton Foundation later that evening at the Guildhall.

In 2009 Julian Lloyd Webber launched In Harmony Lambeth to help children from disadvantaged areas around London to build self-confidence and access musical education.

Julian Lloyd Webber was inspired by the great 1970s Venezuelan maestro Jose Antonio Abreu who saw the favelas of Venezuela increasingly descending into armed violence, with children often on the front line. He founded El Sistema to form ad hoc orchestras, in which children are provided with instruments and learn together. This project has been so successful it now involves 500,000 children across the Venezuelan favelas, providing them with an alternative to lives of boredom and crime.

At a recent dinner held at Thomas Goode, five children from In Harmony Lambeth were invited to showcase their skills to a delighted audience of global CEOs that included the former Norwegian Prime Minister and the former German Minister of Defence.

Ralph Heimans is one of the world’s most distinguished portrait artists, with his work displayed from the National Portrait Gallery of his native country Australia to the Natural History Museum in Denmark. In 2012, he was commissioned to paint a portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in celebration of her Diamond Jubilee.

The Rumi Foundation held an event to support the work of Mr Heimans at Westminster Abbey in the Chapter House. “It made me think really deeply about the role art has to play, to portray, to influence, and to change how we look at other people,” Rumi Verjee says of the event. “It gives you a deep sense of contemplation, spiritual being and understanding – especially in the hands of a master craftsman like Ralph.”

The Photographers’ Gallery was founded in 1971 as the first independent gallery in Britain to be purely devoted to photography. As a result, The Photographer’s Gallery has been crucial in establishing photography’s important role in culture and society, and has provided a vital focus for this medium in the heart of London. The gallery was the first in the country to exhibit key names in international photography, such as Juergen Teller, Robert Capa, and Taryn Simon, alongside promoting the work of the UK-based practitioners including Martin Parr and Corinne Day.

In early 2013, the Foundation sponsored an exhibition by the late Brazilian artist Geraldo de Barros, one of the most influential artists in South America, who through the exhibition was introduced to a British audience for the first time. He was one of the key pioneers of Modernist photography in Latin America.

Opera Circus is a world renowned operatic ensemble that produce both powerful and beautiful performances set around important social issues.

Their latest work, Naciketa, a contemporary opera steeped in the ragas of India and tells the story of a young boy who must confront three of the deepest challenges to humanity in our time: girls being sold into prostitution, child soldiers and children who have been orphaned by war and tyranny. In each case, music rescues him in the worst moment, consoles him and his fellow children and gives them hope for a different sort of future.

Keeping with the strong social messages in their productions, Opera Circus engage schools and organisations working with children and young people, in particular those with disadvantages, trauma as a result of war or conflict and disability, using music and creative arts to encourage and give belief to the children.

The Rumi Foundation is proud to support this work.

The Rumi Foundation was honoured to once again host President Bill Clinton in London for a dinner to promote the work of the Clinton Foundation.

The audience for the dinner consisted of global philanthropists, entrepreneurs, thought leaders and leading change makers.

President Clinton spoke at length about the work of the Clinton Foundation and the importance of co-operation between the private and public sectors.

The Rumi Foundation is honoured to be working with the Clinton Foundation in Africa and Rumi Verjee briefed the attendees on The Rumi Foundation’s work in Uganda.

President Clinton also announced that following the departure of Secretary Clinton as Secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation had now changed its name to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) is the charitable arm of the Royal Warrant Holder Association and was established in 1990 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Association and the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Since its inception, QEST has granted 296 scholarships to a varied talent pool of craftsmen and women to further fund study, training and practical experience for those who wish to improve their craft and trade skills.

The Foundation has set up a scholarship with QEST to nurture new talent and promote craftsmanship in the fields of Ceramics, Glass and Silver. Working with QEST the Foundation aims to preserve the heritage and skills of craft making in the UK.

Founded in Canada in 1995 by Craig Kielburger at the age of 12, Free The Children has created a global movement to engage a generation of young people in active citizenship, volunteerism and social action both locally and globally.

Since launching in the UK in 2010, Free The Children has worked with over 175 primary and secondary schools, including Academies and Free Schools, reaching over 40,000 young people across the country with the aim of developing leadership skills and learning about volunteerism and social entrepreneurship as a means of making a positive impact on their local communities and the wider world.

The Rumi Foundations’ founder, Rumi Verjee, together with Holly Branson, are co-chairs of the inaugural We Day UK in March 2014.

We Day is Free The Children’s annual, stadium-sized youth empowerment event which celebrates active citizenship among young people. It brings young people together to inspire them to make a difference and lead global change on issues of their choice.

Following We Day, young people take part in Free The Children’s year-long programme We Act, inspiring them to care about social issues, and providing the practical tools to turn that inspiration into action, encouraging volunteerism on both a local and a global level.

Swami Parthasarathy, popularly known as ‘Swamiji’, is widely acclaimed as the greatest living exponent of Vedanta. He has multiple degrees in literature, science and law, and completed a post graduate degree in international law from London University. In a life of spiritual service over five decades his exceptional contribution to humanity has been to successfully infuse the ancient wisdom of Vedanta into modern living.

Vedanta is the ancient philosophy of life and living. It programmes a life of internal peace combined with dynamic action in the world. Vedanta equips individuals with clarity of intellect to deal with the challenges of life.

In promoting the Foundations beliefs for learning and knowledge development, The Rumi Foundation hosted a discussion with Swami Parthasarathy in London in June 2012. ‘Swamiji’ talked at length about the principles needed to develop the essential qualities for success, overall balance and harmony in life and discussed the need for responsible capitalism in todays society and how Vedanta can be used to achieve this.

Building Tomorrow‘s goal is to provide a safe, permanent and local place for children in the developing world to learn. Its focus is in Uganda, where it has financed the construction of 10 schools, with a further five being built as at October 2012. Building Tomorrow empowers young college students in America to be Building Tomorrow Ambassadors: they advocate and fundraise at their local universities for a new primary-level academy in Uganda.

Working with the Ugandan government, Building Tomorrow identifies a rural community in Uganda with no access to primary education. The local community is challenged to donate three acres of land and volunteer 20,000 hours of labour to construct the school. The project is then passed to the local community to oversee the construction and management of the academy. This partnership results in the creation of a source of pride and a catalyst for change in the local community.

After a visit in 2012 by our Founder with President Bill Clinton to Uganda, The Rumi Foundation is pleased to partner with the Clinton Foundation in a major contribution to Building Tomorrow. This donation will support the expansion of Building Tomorrow’s fundraising programmes and will accelerate school construction in Uganda. This unique model of philanthropy creates a connection between privileged college students in the USA and rural Ugandan children who otherwise would not receive primary education.