British Asian Trust

The British Asian Trust is a diaspora-led international development organisation, delivering programmes throughout South Asia, and specialising in championing social finance products to drive positive change across the region.

The charity’s approach is to end inequality and injustice in South Asia faster and more effectively, and its programmes are focused on the areas of education, livelihoods, anti-trafficking and mental health.

In total the Foundation has made seven grants to the Trust. These include: 

• In 2020 the Randal Charitable Foundation partnered with the British Asian Trust to save 100,000 lives affected during the Covid-19 pandemic by making a significant donation. The money was made available to help some of the millions of people across South Asia who have suffered a catastrophic loss of jobs and income because of the Covid-19 lockdown. In total over 137,000 lives were saved through this partnership. 

• In 2021 and in response to the devastation caused by India’s Covid-19 pandemic second wave, The Foundation has made a significant donation to the British Asian Trust’s Oxygen for India Appeal. The grant funding directly provided an oxygen generator (PSA plant) at the 550 bed St Martha’s Hospital in Bangalore to deliver sustainable and life-saving oxygen to patients suffering from Covid-19.

South Asia is home to 27% of the world’s poorest people and during the pandemic tens of millions of vulnerable families in the region faced life or death situations because of Covid-19. Many thousands of these people left the cities during the lockdown to return home, often walking hundreds of miles by foot to reach rural villages, with no access to food or other basic necessities.