_The Hope Foundation is a new charity partner of Mystic India, the India travel specialists.

Mystic India is offering a bespoke tour to Kolkata and Darjeeling, which includes spending a day visiting our projects and learning more about what we are doing to assist street children. We will receive a donation from each HOPE tour, as well as a donation for every customer who finds Mystic India through our website! Find out more here.

The Honorary Director of the Hope Foundation, Maureen Forrest, has been nominated for the first ever Street Child Champions Awards 2011, run by the Consortium for Street Children.

The awards honour unsung heroes who are making a real difference to street children's lives. Since 1999, when she founded the Hope Foundation, Maureen has dedicated her life to assisting street children in Kolkata. She works tirelessly on a voluntary basis. The organisation has grown to employ over 700 members of staff, almost all of whom are based in India, and currently assists 18,000 street children to access protection, education and healthcare.

If successful, Maureen will donate the £1,000 prize money to our project assisting young girls to move away from the sex industry to safe forms of income generation, in which they are supported by self help groups and their peers.

“Amidst the poverty, hope is the one thing that abounds in the slums of Calcutta. Not only in the spirit of the people, but in the remarkable achievements of a small Irish organization, ‘The Hope Foundation’”, (Jennifer May, The Big Issue Ireland).

The book is an Insightful, detailed, written and photographic examination of all of the Hope foundation’s projects in Calcutta. Dr Ethel Crowley writes “You cannot describe India, especially Calcutta, until you see it with your own eyes”.

Daring to Dream is now available to buy from the Hope Office, for £20 plus postage. For more information please email us or call 0844 478 0778.