Future First is HSBC?s global 5-year (2007-2012) programme for helping street children, children in care and orphans in countries where such children exist. With an aim of reaching out to one million children across the globe, Future First aims to deliver a lasting impact in the lives of these children by supporting local not-for-profit organisations working directly with underprivileged children and SOS Children?s Villages, the world?s largest charity for orphans, to provide education and life skills to these children who are the weakest segment in the world of global have-nots.

Why Future First
Globally, more than a hundred million children still do not have any access to schooling and a significant proportion of them reside in poor countries. The lack of basic education means that young people have fewer choices and opportunities to break out of the cycle of poverty. This calls for a concerted effort towards achieving universal education by governments, bilateral and multilateral aid organisations, civil society, the private sector and individuals worldwide.

Future First was thus conceptualised with the objective of investing in the future of those children who are at the bottom of the pyramid ? street children, orphans and children in care. The primary goal of Future First is to deliver a lasting impact in the lives of street children, orphans and children in care around the world by providing them with access to education and life skills training, and thereby enabling them to become positive and productive assets of society.

Today, Future First supports a variety of education and life skills projects across the world. These consist of a diverse range of initiatives from improving the quality of education in remote and rural areas in Lebanon, South Africa, Pakistan and Malaysia to mainstreaming street and working children into regular school in India, working with children affected by war in Lebanon and earthquake victims in Indonesia, art and music workshops in France, entrepreneurship education in Sri Lanka, employment-oriented training in Mexico, Vietnam and Argentina, and much more.

Click here to see a list of education projects supported in India.