History

A Brief history

It all began with an invitation and a journey to India, specifically to Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh in March 1985. Hugh Jervis and Alan George spent three amazing weeks full of challenge, red hot curries, culture shock, icky tummies, and the heat, heat we had never imagined! But we also encountered great kindness, vibrant young people, passionate leaders, and teachers and just perhaps the possibility to make a difference.

And so, we were off and a partnership developed between Christian Fellowship Church (CFC) and United Christian church of India (UCCI) led by John Winston who became a close friend.

Since then, we have been involved in many activities but always our goal was to help the poorest children to have the possibility to be educated. Land was bought, schools built, projects developed. Notably in 1995 we bought land in Hyderabad and developed an all-new school in memory of Alan’s wife Janet who had passed away. This became a focus of our work for 25 years.

There have always been challenges not least when John Winston died in 2005 but his wife Nalini Winston stepped into his role and has been an inspiration as has their son Emmi who now manages the school we partner with.

After COVID we realised that the school in Hyderabad had a limited future and we have recentred our activities in Kethenakonda with a new and enlarged day school serving families whose fragile lives have been severely affected by two years of economic turmoil.

Frontline the charity was formed for legal governance requirements but continues to be a journey, fuelled by a passion for children’s education. As Emmi often says why should poor children not get the same quality education as the rich? It’s also been about partnerships, UCCI, CFC, our long-term faithful supporters and the literally hundreds who have visited, gave, prayed and just encouraged us along the way!