history

EWE was the idea of Daya Durai whilst she was teaching children learning English as an additional language in West Sussex schools.  Daya and her colleagues found there was a lack of awareness about the cultural backgrounds of the children and a lack of appropriate teaching resources.

Daya had been volunteering with the charity Oasis India, which promotes educational and vocational training to young people living in the slums of Bangalore.  This gave her the inspiration to employ young disadvantaged people there to make the resources for schools in the UK.

After successfully testing the market in the summer of 2000, East-West Education was established and registered as a charity.

The products are made by young people in Bangalore and a village near Chennai providing them with fairly paid employment and vocational training.  In the UK, a team of volunteers market and sell the products at educational exhibitions, through educational catalogues and EWE’s website.  Because the charity is run entirely by volunteers, all the profits raised from sales are used to benefit these young people through training and employment, helping them to climb out of the vicious spiral of poverty.