W4 met Timothy Blake, founder of the London School Trust, to find out about their fantastic work to provide education and training to create life-changing opportunities for men and women around the world.
Creating a Trust from a School
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Timothy Blake is the owner and Chief Executive of the London School and has been running the London School Trust since it was founded a couple of years ago. Wanting to serve clients and the community rather than to simply make money, the School’s team used part of the School’s funding to create the Trust. To decide on which projects they should support, they consult their Trustees, who also decide on the allocation of any money injected by Timothy. And, because Timothy wanted to involve the staff of the whole school and make the endeavour more organic and collective, it is a staff committee that decides on the Trust funding that arises from any school profits.
Supporting W4’s work to empower women in Mexico
The Trust’s continuing donations to W4 arose out of staff recommendations. A Mexican woman married to one of the school’s trainers had heard of the work being carried out by the non-profit organisation Semillas, a Mexican non-profit organization that provides grants and advice to women’s empowerment groups throughout the country, raising awareness and promoting the protection of women’s rights. “Semillas” means “seeds” in Spanish: the organization recognizes that women are the seeds of positive social change. It is dedicated to changing attitudes that hinder women’s empowerment so that women can contribute to the creation of a peaceful and prosperous future. The Mexican woman and her husband were not part of the staff committee, but they proposed Semillas as a beneficiary and their suggestion was appreciated; the committee liked the fact that Semillas’ programs are education-based but not narrowly focused on the teaching of English.
Participants of a rights-awareness program supported by Semillas
Other Funding Success Stories
Another example of a project funded by the London School Trust is that of a retired man from Taiwan who wanted to volunteer as a teacher in a small rural school in his home country. He invested in the London School to study English and later returned to Taiwan to teach. The London School Trust supported his project by donating £1,000 for the purchase of books, teaching materials and equipment.
The Trust usually seeks to support projects more like Semillas, with a broader educational or cultural mission, not limited to teaching English. For instance, a couple of years ago, as part of the School’s centenary celebrations, it sponsored a film competition. This year, the British Film Institute ran a “Filmmakers Under 25” competition and, in the framework of this contest, the London School offered the international prize, specifically for non-British entrants.
The Trust passionately sponsors many projects supporting vulnerable or marginalised groups in society. It supports education for people in prison, giving them opportunities to develop skills behind bars as a means to prevent them from reoffending when they return to society (Prisoner’s Educational Trust). It has supported a Brazilian NGO helping young people in the favelas of Rio De Janeiro, engaging them in educational programs as a means to prevent crime. And they support a project in Canterbury, England, where they’ve helped recovering addicts and criminal offenders.
On a creative note: a young UK-based Brazilian man who had briefly worked in the School’s kitchen went on to start a theater company in London; the Trust sponsored one of the theater’s productions and contributed to the company’s young directors’ development program.
Semillas program participants
The Biggest Challenges
The London School Trust is still in its early days. It has existed for only a couple of years and Timothy expects the biggest challenges will arise when the Trust becomes better known and they receive many more requests for support, making the allocation of funds even more difficult than it already is. He remembers one of the Trust’s scholarship programs for students: he pored over 50 applications, each of which seemed hugely worth supporting, and he and the Trust had to disappoint a lot of people who were at once talented and in need, which was hard.
Looking to the Future
The Trust hopes to be able to offer more awards in the future. The team has not finalized the schedule or frequency of the awards, but they plan to allocate more money for these than they did last year. The London School Trust is learning to walk before it can run, but the more profits the School makes, the more awards the Trust can offer.
Find out more about the work of the Mexican women’s fund, Semillas, that the London School Trust supports through W4.
