From a Moment of Obligation to a Lasting, Global Impact
Train platform school | India
In 1990, on a hot and dusty day in Bhubaneswar, India, Maya Ajmera stepped onto a bustling train platform. There she encountered 40 children sitting in a circle while a teacher held up flashcards and engaged them in simple learning exercises.
After the lesson, Maya inquired about the cost of operating a school on this model—one that brought nonformal education directly to children who lived and begged on the train platforms. She learned that school operated on about $400 per year, supporting 50 children and two teachers. The school provided the children with education, clothing, and food. Perhaps most importantly, the school instilled in the children a sense of worth and empowered them to determine their futures. It was a simple, powerful model of grassroots change.
This “moment of obligation” led Maya to found The Global Fund for Children in 1994, with the help of $25,000 in seed money from the Echoing Green Foundation. Maya based her approach on the belief that small amounts of money, when given to innovative, community-based organizations, could make a real, lasting impact on the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children.
At the core of Maya’s approach was a desire to foster global citizenship in children from a very young age using the power of children’s books and other media. Since 1996, Global Fund for Children Books has developed over 30 award-winning titles. Proceeds from the first book, Children from Australia to Zimbabwe, supported the train platform school in India that inspired Maya to create The Global Fund for Children.
By 1999, our grantmaking budget increased ten-fold. Throughout our growth, we have remained experimental, imaginative and attentive to the needs of our grantee partners—taking big risks and seeking even bigger rewards for the communities and children we serve.
After a decade of refining our model and approach, we had expanded our model to include a variety of services to help our grassroots partners grow and become more sustainable. These value-added services help improve their sustainability, develop their networks, increase their visibility, and grow and deepen their capacity to positively affect children’s lives.
In 2005 we established the Sustainability Award—a $25,000 grant that recognizes highly successful grantee partners. We also held our first regional Knowledge Exchange, providing an opportunity for grantee partners to share experiences, discuss organizational challenges and methodologies, and learn about broader issues affecting children and communities in the region. Our grantmaking program also expanded to implement special disaster relief and emergency grants to partners affected by natural disasters or struggling to have their basic needs met within conflict zones.
From a moment of obligation emerged an organization with a wide global scope and impact. Today, we are one of the largest networks of grassroots organizations working on behalf of vulnerable, hard-to-reach children. To date, we have proudly invested $23 million in over 500 grassroots organizations in 78 countries, serving over 7 million children.