Educate for Life build economically, socailly and ecologically sustainable schools. But what does that actually translate into? Actually, the word 'schools' is a bit premature - we currently only have one. It is called Hunar Ghar, and it is in Rajasthan, a state in north-west India.

Educate for Life built Hunar Ghar in 2007 with the help of financial and creative helpers, a local Indian charity called RBKS, and the support of the local community which the school would serve.

On a day to day basis, we work to develop the pedagogy and syllabus that is used in Hunar Ghar by expanding the capacities of our staff. We are also working towards opening a second school, which will also be in India.

We are using the improvement of our school as a mechanism to having a much wider influence on education in India and, later, other countries. By creating an environment that is not only much better for the children but also one where they learn more, learn more that is useful and relevant, and learn the skills needed to put what they learn into practice, we can help children develop to their full potential and become successful people. Other school running organisations, such as RBKS and the government, can see the positive effect our style of teaching has on the children and can put it into effect in their schools, there-by improving educational standards to a greater degree than we could do through running just our own schools.

We use our schools as forums for community development. Through better learning poor people, which are traditionally subject to the whim and decision of charities and government when it comes to their 'development', can take control of their own development and as a result be more independant, resilient people.

We also use our charity to share ideas in the UK. For too long charity has been seen as taking our knowledge and helping poor, needy people, and focuses on money as a means to doing that. We think that actually we canlearn a lot of great things from those societies, and that charity should be some kind of exchange as equals. We also encourage the opinion that charity isn't all about the donations. It is about how we can make decisions in our own lives that have a positive impact on ourselves and our local and not-so-local communities, and that those sorts of decisions are much more meaningful than a £10 a month standing order that someone has forgotten about, while continuing to lead a destructive life anyway.