The John Foundation was founded sixteen years ago to principally address the profound social ills of female sex trafficking and the dire consequences of poverty and HIV/Aids on communities and particularly children in the Hyderabad region of India. Established by husband and wife, Saji and Cynthia John, the John Foundation concentrates on providing education and skills and has had a transformative impact on many thousands of lives, creating independent individuals and breaking the cycle of poverty as they work and contribute to a more productive and successful society.
Saji & cynthia John
The John Foundation works on an innovative working model, combining commerce with philanthropy and is being studied and replicated by non-profits from all over the developing world. Saji and his team regularly receive visitors from as far as Argentina, South East Asia and many parts of Africa, keen to see the great outcomes of their work and understand how to implement it.
Through these commercial endeavours, The John Foundation creates 64% of its own revenues to fund its commendable charitable works. A far more ‘robust model capable of producing long-term impacts in the face of unreliable and inconsistent funding.’
The charitable endeavours of the John Foundation are vast and far reaching…
The operation of 24 children’s homes for orphans and dispossessed children.
Two hundred young women are saved each year from trafficking and forced prostitution. These women are not only housed and cared for, they are given skills training and jobs in the various Foundation commercial enterprises. The subsequent employment rate for women completing this programme is 89%.
The training and re-education of nearly 8000 illiterate adults, many of whom are preyed upon by sex gangs. The Foundation trains up to 1300 adults per year in government approved courses in computing, sewing, spoken English and accounting.
The John Foundation has established that children with illiterate parents are most likely to fail school and targets such families with its tuition centres and furthermore with its back to school program – the Foundation works with families who have lost fathers in workplace accidents.
Ever ambitious, The John Foundation has recently acquired the land to build its third campus and plans to include a nursing training college, a further school for 800 students, a small hospital and other income generating endeavours like a bicycle service station and garment manufacturing factories with high ethical standards of pay and employment to continue the virtuous cycle of rescuing highly disadvantaged adults and children and offering the chance to gain independent and successful lives ahead.
The Brothers Trust fully supports this noble effort. It is in essence what we have in the developed world and too often take for granted. Education provided for us, from which we are able to acquire the skills to establish careers and to take our place in a self-sustaining society.
The John Foundations philanthropic model even prompted us to begin the Brothers Trust foray in to merchandise. The notion that a garment factory staffed with young women saved from a wretched life of prostitution was needing orders to sustain itself made eminent sense for us to launch our first tee-shirt – with all proceeds going back to the John Foundation so that they can increase and expand their impact.
The scale of the myriad problems facing developing countries and their communities are formidable and overwhelming but this is not a reason to look elsewhere. The John Foundation are as brave as they are resilient. They are transforming people’s lives and will continue to be a force for change and positive outcomes and The Brothers Trust will continue to support them.
In the interests of brevity, this blog is a mere digest of the work of The John Foundation and we encourage anyone interested to spend some time on their website www.johnfoundation.org where there is a wealth of information, case studies and photographs and ways that their important work can be continued.