# Swedish entrepreneur gives £2.7 million to London charity

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/06/03/swedish-entrepreneur-gives-27-million-london-charity/
- Published: 2007-06-03T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Swedish entrepreneur and philanthropist Jonas af Jochnick, co-founder of cosmetic
company Oriflame, has given £2.7m to the London-based micro-business charity Hand
in Hand which is working in Tamil Nadu, India.
Hand in Hand (HiH), founded three
years ago, aims to help poor illiterate women in India start their own income-generating
businesses. It has been sustained largely with the funding and expertise of Swedish
businessman Percy Barnevik, formerly head of ABB and AstraZeneca.

The £2.7 million gift follows a recent visit to Tamil Nadu by Jonas af Jochnick 
to view the HiH projects.

Dr Kalpana Sankar, Chief Executive of HiH, said: “this donation will make it possible
for us to teach 50,000 more women to read, to train 100,000 women to start micro
enterprises and establish 600 medium sized businesses to build and run schools for
children released from factories, maintain 500 health camps serving 100,000 people
and set up 5 new waste disposal units simultaneously.”

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HiH reports that it has helped women start 58,000 small businesses, with an average
of 4,000 starting every month. It has taken 6,500 children out of bonded work contracts
and placed them in its 22 transit and residential schools where, “learning by HiH
new teaching methods, they can quickly bridge the education gap and return to the
state school system”.

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