Our international partners
Enjuba is an education social enterprise improving literacy and executive function for Ugandan children through spelling bees, publishing locally relevant children's books and early childhood programs.
Kidogo is a social enterprise that improves access to quality, affordable Early Childhood Care & Education in East Africa's low income communities. Kidogo uses an innovative social franchising approach to identify, train and support female entrepreneurs (Mamapreneurs) to start or grow childcare micro-businesses.
Decades of prescriptive aid programs have sidelined communities facing poverty from the very programs meant to uplift them. Villages are littered with empty school buildings and broken water taps because they were built without community buy-in. Spark MicroGrants was founded in 2010 to address this problem. Spark has designed a novel approach to empower communities facing poverty to design and drive their own economic and civic development.
Our domestic partners
Acumen Academy UK is a charity that develops and delivers leadership programs for social entrepreneurs and senior decision-makers committed to solving problems of poverty and inequality across the United Kingdom. As the "world's school for social change," it provides participants with the skills of business and moral leadership needed to build scalable solutions to systemic issues like educational disparities, unemployment, and poor healthcare access.
The Fair Education Alliance (FEA) is a UK-wide coalition of 300 cross-sector organizations committed to ending educational inequity. Its core vision is that no child's success should be limited by their socioeconomic background. The alliance addresses the persistent achievement gap between young people from low-income communities and their wealthier peers, which can be significant even by primary school age. The FEA drives change through collective action, advocacy, and a system-wide approach to shifting policies and practices that perpetuate inequality. They collaborate with members, young people, and policymakers to amplify a unified voice, develop joint solutions, and scale effective interventions to ensure all young people can thrive from early childhood to employment.
Football Beyond Borders (FBB) is an education and social inclusion charity that uses the power of football to change the lives of disadvantaged young people across the UK. The organization works with students who are passionate about football but disengaged in mainstream school, often at risk of exclusion. FBB provides intensive, long-term support combining classroom sessions, football activities, and one-to-one therapeutic mentoring to develop social and emotional skills. The goal is to help participants improve their behaviour, academic engagement, and ultimately finish school with the necessary skills and grades to successfully transition into adulthood.
Literacy Pirates’ vision is for every child to have the literacy skills, confidence and perseverance to succeed at school and beyond. We provide free, after-school programmes that support children who are falling behind in class and have fewer opportunities than their peers. Our programmes serve children across the UK, via an in person programme in Hackney and an online programme that is growing term-on-term.
Little Village makes a big difference to families with babies and young children living in poverty across London. Via our network of baby banks we pass on loved goods from one family to another – clothes, toys and equipment – so that many more babies and young children have the essential things they need to thrive.
Growing up has always been hard, but today’s children are being asked to deal with so much more. Chance UK works to support children at the earliest stage of need, to provide 1:1 mentoring and support before a difficulty becomes a crisis. We help children aged 5-14, and their families, to develop skills to help them thrive in the changing and complex world we have.
School-Home Support (SHS) is a UK national education charity dedicated to improving school attendance and children's life chances by tackling the root causes of educational inequality. SHS works in partnership with schools and local authorities to provide bespoke, whole-family support through expert practitioners. These practitioners look "beyond the classroom" to address complex barriers to learning, such as poverty, mental ill-health, inadequate housing, and domestic issues. By building trusting relationships and resilience, SHS helps families overcome these challenges, ensuring children are in school and ready to learn.
The Reading Agency is a UK charity dedicated to tackling life's big challenges by inspiring social and personal change through the proven power of reading. They work with individuals of all ages and backgrounds to boost literacy, improve well-being, and connect communities. The charity develops and delivers a wide range of programmes, such as the Summer Reading Challenge for children and the Reading Well schemes which provide accredited booklists to support mental health and wellbeing. Working with a network of partners, including public libraries, schools, and prisons, the organisation reaches millions of people each year to champion reading for pleasure.
Our community partners
BelEve is a UK-based charity empowering girls and young women to believe in themselves and lead with confidence. Through leadership programmes, mentorship, and skills-building workshops, BelEve helps young women aged 8-22, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds unlock their potential, find their voice, and thrive in education, careers, and life. Their work breaks down barriers and builds up the next generation of female leaders.
Children's book project is a lean, grassroots, volunteer-powered charity that understands the enormous power that reading has in shaping children’s lives. They have the ambition to eradicate book poverty and believe that, regardless of their circumstances, every child deserves access to inspiring reading material, expanding their perspective on the world and helping them to fulfil their potential.
First Story is England’s creative writing charity for young people. They enrich the lives of students in low-income communities by providing quality extracurricular creative activities and cultural experiences that foster creativity, confidence, ability and talent. They believe every young person deserves to reap the benefits of a rich creative education and their vision is a society that encourages and supports young people from all backgrounds to practice creative writing for pleasure, self-expression and agency.
The National Literacy Trust offers much-needed creative writing activity in HMP Grendon and HMP Aylesbury, supporting people who may not be accessing formal education to use literacy as a tool for self-expression and family connection. In addition to running regular writing workshops, the National Literacy Trust works with inspiring authors to put on engaging events, donates books to prison wings and libraries, and recruits Literacy Champions to build a culture of reading and writing for pleasure in both prisons.
Woodrow is a happy, creative organisation transforming young lives by sparking adventure, imagination, curiosity and lifelong appreciation for nature. Young people need opportunities beyond school to grow, have fun and to become positive changemakers in their communities. Welcoming over 8000 school children and young people annually from across Buckinghamshire and bordering counties on day and residential visits at our 16th Century Manor House estate, plus more than 3000 individuals from our local community who regularly use our leisure facilities including our swimming pool, sports hall, Astro - Pitch and off-road cycle skills track.
Sufra is a charity in North West London that prevents hunger, fights poverty and builds community. With the help of their volunteers and partners, they coordinate a network of food banks, kitchens, a community shop and café. These act as a gateway for their guests to access more holistic support – including welfare advice, asylum support and an award-winning community garden. Sufra works with their guests to find solutions to their challenges together, whilst campaigning against the causes of hunger and poverty.
Restore Hope has been changing the lives of disadvantaged children, young people, and families since 2002. Awarded the King’s Award for Voluntary Service (2025) and the Heart of Bucks People’s Choice Award (2023), the charity provides relational, community-based support that improves social inclusion, mental and physical health, and life skills. We positively impact physical wellbeing, address mental health needs, improve educational engagement, and increase life and employability skills. We do this by growing and providing produce to families experiencing food poverty; delivering sessions for parents, children, and young people to improve life outcomes; offering specialist support to those struggling to access help; and providing opportunities for young people, especially those with SEN, to improve school engagement and develop employment skills.
The Primary Shakespeare Company (PSC), founded in 2009 and based in London, places professional theatre practitioners into primary and special schools to explore Shakespeare’s plays across the curriculum—boosting literacy, confidence, teamwork, and attainment . Each term, schools collaboratively rehearse and perform one act of a chosen play at a public festival, with practitioners guiding teachers in drama-based pedagogy. PSC also offers digital cross‑curricular resources (covering literacy, maths, science, art and music), bespoke multi‑sensory projects for special schools, and teacher training sessions. This immersive “stealth writing” model supports academic progress while fostering creativity and cultural engagement.
The Fawsett Trust is a small charitable trust of many years standing that distributes vouchers to elderly, long term residents of Chalfont St Giles in December each year. Although the scale of the Fawsett Trust is small, the vouchers make a considerable difference to the recipients and are very gratefully received. In these modern times it is, perhaps, sad that there are folk in the village to whom a relatively small amount can make a real difference.
For 45 years, Youth Concern has played a vital role in supporting young people aged 13–25 across Aylesbury Vale—particularly those experiencing additional life challenges. The charity provides a welcoming Drop-in Centre, a counselling service and homelessness prevention projects, offering both emotional and practical support when young people need it most. Youth Concern’s wide-ranging services are designed to empower young people, help them overcome barriers and provide the resources they need to lead healthy, happy, and fulfilling lives. These include access to emotional support and counselling, guidance on education, training and employment, and practical assistance for those experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The Drop-in Centre also operates the first dedicated youth food bank in Aylesbury and offers signposting to specialist services covering substance misuse, sexual health, financial advice, and legal support.
BIGKID Foundation is an award winning London-based youth charity on a mission to end youth violence and youth isolation. Working across schools and community hubs, BIGKID equips young people aged 11-25 with the confidence, skills and support they need to find a sense of belonging and lead positive change. Through leadership programmes, long-term mentoring, sports such as flag football, and youth-led community projects, BIGKID builds resilience, improves school engagement and reduces conflict. Founded by lived experience, the charity now supports over 4000 young people a year, helping them to stay safe, raise their aspirations and realise their potential.