BROCHURE

Our current brochure is available now.

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In his Chairman’s message, Mr Wafic Rida Said writes:

‘When my wife and I established the Karim Rida Said Foundation a
quarter of a century ago, we had three objectives in mind: we wanted to
help the most disadvantaged children in our region to have a better future;
we believed in the power of education to enhance the life chances of
individuals and the development of their countries; and we sought to build
bridges between the Arab and the western cultures. Everything our work
has taught us over the last 25 years has reinforced our commitment to
these three objectives.

Beginning with just a few scholarships a year, the Foundation now runs
three programmes covering education, child development and culture with
thousands of beneficiaries reached annually across Syria, Lebanon, Jordan,
Iraq, Palestine and the UK. We have learned that action is needed at every
level, from supporting the individual through scholarships, to supporting
groups of disadvantaged children and their communities through carefully
targeted projects, from enhancing service provision through training, to
addressing the attitudes of society as a whole to some of its members.
Add to this the now expanding Arab Culture Programme and you have an
organisation that is actively responding to the needs of a region and a
world more troubled than we could possibly have imagined when we first
discussed the idea of a Foundation all those years ago.

The KRSF changes lives – from the young woman who leaves Gaza for
the first time to pursue a Master’s degree in the United Kingdom, to the
disabled child in Syria taking his first steps. The Foundation has grown and
diversified and yet the focus remains firmly set on our vision of a Middle
East in which all children can realise their full potential.

Poverty, conflict and deepening misunderstanding and mistrust continue to
throw up seemingly insurmountable obstacles. They are a moral call to arms
to all of us not to give up but to press on with our work. That is what the
Foundation does and, for this, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to our
trustees and staff. I would also like to thank our many partners, both in the
region and in the UK, for sharing our commitment and helping to deliver
the results. There is much to celebrate, much to be thankful for and much
left to do.'