HRH The Prince of Wales praised our work during a speech at recent dinner for supporters of The British Asian Trust and The Prince’s Trust in London
“I founded The British Asian Trust in 2007 and to date we’ve been able to assist over 350,000 people in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to improve their lives.
The British Asian Trust invests donor funds from individuals and corporate institutions in high-impact charities in South Asia, helping them to scale-up in order to achieve more. I do know that many donors in the United Kingdom sometimes worry about funding projects overseas and I would just like to reassure you that The British Asian Trust puts funds into organisations after rigorous due diligence. This, as you can imagine, is of enormous importance.
The British Asian Trust funds organisations that fulfil unmet needs in the areas of health, education and livelihoods. It’s currently the only organisation in the United Kingdom working specifically in this cross-border way and it’s led by members of the Diaspora.
One great example of The British Asian Trust’s work has been the support we’ve been able to give to a splendid project called Umeed, or ‘Hope’, run by an organisation called Saath in Gujarat, India. This programme addresses the critical issue of youth unemployment, an issue that has been of concern to me both in the United Kingdom and around the world for the last 35 years. The programme was established to help residents of the slums improve their employment prospects by providing them with an opportunity to learn life skills, technical skills and basic English.
Critically, after the students finish their courses, the programme also helps them gain access to sustainable sources of employment in high growth service centres. Most jobs are at entry level in the sectors of science and technology, finance, marketing, health and homecare services, communication and hospitality services. Approximately 40 percent of the participants are girls and, in just six months, 7,000 young people have been trained with a placement rate of 77 percent. That is actually pretty remarkable when you think about it. Not only does this programme make a significant difference to the lives of the young people by helping them realise their full potential. It also helps transform the lives of those around them, which revitalises local communities.
Our guiding principle is always to try to find the unmet needs, the areas that others are unable or unwilling to venture into. In Pakistan, the Developments in Literacy charity that my Trust supports helps to improve the state of education for disadvantaged girls in many mainly rural areas. At each of its schools, the organisation focuses on infrastructure, teacher development, curriculum development, access to technology for students and the establishment of libraries.
The great strength of the project seems to me, at any rate, the way in which it trains future trainers, developing skills and building capacity to the point where individual skills can be handed over to the community who then run the schools themselves.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve just given you a very small snapshot of what we have tried to do with my British Asian Trust and I hope you realise that there is an enormous amount we can do in different areas throughout South Asia to help people to develop their talents and their potential.
I hope you will feel that this is something that could give you as much reward and as much pride as it does me.”
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