Running a rural school and need investment??

This is one of the most fabulous news I have recently heard. Please read through.

Orient Global Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Orient Global Group, is pleased to announce it has created a USD 100 million Education Fund committed to supporting entrepreneurial solutions to improve the quality and availability of education in developing countries around the world. Education is the foundation for economic development and individual fulfilment, promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, and it plays an essential role in fostering social harmony and teaching us how to live together.

Whether one is addressing poverty, healthcare, unemployment or equality, education is one of the most effective ways to improve lives. Yet due to inequalities in the education systemin underdeveloped countries, over 100 million underprivileged children do not have access to education, whilst the quality of education received by many more children is extremely low. Orient Global Foundation seeks to bridge this gap.

Announcing the creation of the Education Fund, Richard Chandler, Founder and Chairman of Orient Global, commented: “Education is essential if we are to create and sustain a better future. Orient Global Foundation will promote a holistic education for underprivileged children, allowing them to release their talents and creativity for the benefit of themselves and others. Education is the bridge between poverty and prosperity. Our goal is to ensure that every child – no matter their sex, race, family background or socioeconomic status – will receive a quality education that allows them to compete in a rapidly changing global economy.”

Professor James Tooley will join Orient Global Foundation from 2 April 2007, as President of the Education Fund. Professor Tooley presently directs the E.G. West Research Centre at Newcastle University which is dedicated to understanding the role of choice, competition, and entrepreneurship in the delivery of education for all.

James Tooley commented: “Our research already demonstrates that some of the poorest people in the global village are enlisting the support not of their governments or international agencies, but of entrepreneurs, to help educate their children and improve their lives. In some of the most disadvantaged places on earth, in the slums, shanty towns and villages across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, there is an extraordinary blossoming of private education. Orient Global Foundation’s Education Fund provides the means to add momentum and scale to this phenomenon.”