Educate for Life was set up by two university friends, students by name, and travellers by nature. Ash Patel and Ed Forrest met at University College London in 2003 and, although they did not know it yet, both shared a common dream of building a school in India. It was not until nearly two years later in May 2005 that their common interest was discovered. At that moment both men vowed that together they would raise £ 5000 by the end of the next academic year and with it build a school in India, hire a teacher and fill it with children.

Why stop at India?

That, it would seem, was not enough for them. It was only a matter of time before the question was asked; Why stop at India? And that is the moment when Educate for Life was born. A concept created to provide education to impoverished people in developing countries the world over.

The original Idea

We started with the notion of building economically, environmentally and socially sustainable schools in deprived areas of the world. Upon entering the world of 'charity', 'education' and 'development' however, we discovered it to be much murkier waters that either of us had anticipated and so set about redefining what each of those mean.