Eurekahedge and the RICE fund are collaborating once more in 2012 to promote efforts in supporting the wellbeing of children throughout Asia via educational programs, shelter initiatives and healthcare provision.
The RICE fund was started in 2006 by a small group of enthusiastic people from the Asian hedge fund world. Our vision was to share the success of our industry, supporting children - and children’s educational projects - within the region. Since September 2010, RICE has been registered as an International Charitable Organization (ICO) in Singapore. RICE became officially registered as a Hong Kong charity in 2011.
We provide financial support and advice to organizations throughout Asia, working with children and education. We have a due diligence process in place to ensure our funding is well-targeted, efficiently deployed, with accountability.
Our aim is to improve the quality of life of the children we reach, to give them access to the fundamentals for living and the opportunities the region offers: shelter, healthcare, education and access. We are committed to ensuring that all donations we receive are spent directly for the benefit of children who are in need. No donation is ever spent on running our organisation. We seek to maximize the value of its investments by prioritizing those projects which have the most difficulties securing funding, perhaps because they’ve just started, or because they are working with specific groups that are less cosmetically attractive, or groups that are socially marginalised. We often invest in the less visible parts of these projects (capacity building, staffing, overhead etc) as the “infrastructure” of a project is core to its success, but often not glamorous or easy to fund. We aim to develop long term relationships with both the individuals providing services to children and with other like-minded donors.
Three children’s charities in 2011 have benefitted from RICE donations. These are: Goutte d'Eau - Damnok Toeuk, an organization in Cambodia working with children living with disabilities; Starchildren / CWS, an organization in Nepal working with children infected, and affected, by HIV/Aids and Angkor Hospital for Children, a paediatric hospital and education centre for Cambodian health workers.
RICE is currently reviewing a range of additional projects to support in 2012. These may include Masoom in Mumbai India and M’Lop Tapang in Cambodia. Masoom’s mission is to enable night school students to achieve their full potential through educational and policy support. M’Lop Tapang works with more than 3000 children and 900 families at nine specialized centers in the Sihanoukville region of Cambodia. They provide shelter, medical care, sports, arts, education, training, counseling, family support and protection from all types of abuse.
For more information on the RICE fund please visit their website.
