PHILANTHROPY
Foundation incorporates four main pillars: Education, Health, Nutrition, and Community, each of which are reliant on each other to be successful. Through the delivery of these four pillars, the charity supports children, youth, women, and the community through a range of programmes that are developed based on the needs of our community. "Our attendance was between 60 and 70%, and whilst we were offering free education, free medical and free nutrition, it dawned on me that the parents weren't educated and didn't value it. So we started with community empowerment, resulting in our attendance changing overnight from around 100 children to 1,000 children, then 5,000." Then, things turned difficult as Sarah fell into a coma with health complications. The charity suffered as she struggled as the sole fundraiser. It needed to be more sustainable, and Sarah realised she required corporate partnerships, those who also wanted to make a difference. Inspired, she built CSR programs for Sparkle. "We have spent years understanding the community's needs and have developed an innovative approach to charity by delivering a sustainable and replicable best practice community model." After trying, and failing to register Sparkle in the UAE twice, wanting to offer a legal, structured program for interested parties to join, it was the third time lucky for Sarah. "I was generously given time with government leaders to pitch why Sparkle should register in the UAE. They said, 'We'll give you a year to prove yourself'. We are now the fastest- growing charity in the UAE in terms of volunteers. It was the UAE that made it all possible. In particular, H.E. Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, who believes greatly in The Sparkle Foundation." Sparkle Malawi has now supported over 20,000 children across three sites and is soon to open a fourth by the end of the year. Around 250 people within the UAE support them (the youngest volunteer is just four years old!).
Sarah spent a year volunteering at different charities and ultimately realised how political and corrupt the sector was. She decided then to create something different. She made a plan, and after approaching the UK Government with her proposal and getting rejected, an advert for Dubai caught her eye. "Dubai, the land of opportunity. I thought, right, let me see. So within a week, I applied for a role, got a job and then the tax-free salary that I started sending to Malawi and visiting back and forth." Working on CSR strategies and helping corporates build social initiative programs, it was during an event at which Elon Musk was a speaker when, as Sarah was holding the mic for him, he asked, "Is this what you want to do with your life? Hold microphones for people like me?" Whilst standing next to one of the world’s richest men, grappling with the devasting news of just losing a child from diarrhoea in Malawi, she thought, "absolutely not" and she quit their job and moved to Malawi. After registering the charity in the UK, once Sarah got to Malawi she hit the ground running, starting with an education program, and then realising the children were hungry, a feeding program and, further, a medical programme after seeing them sadly dying of preventable diseases. The integrated approach of the Sparkle
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