The Three R’s Education Trust was set up in February 2004 by Purico founder Nat Puri to provide basic education and healthcare in deprived areas of India and Nepal.

One of its main activities has been to support a project aimed at eradicating illiteracy in remote parts of Nepal by establishing a network of one-teacher schools.

To date the trust has donated £625,000 to create 1,500 schools. They teachers are typically local young people who receive special training. Each class has between 25 and 30 pupils, typically aged five to 16, who study the three R’s, often under the shade of a tree.

The partner organisation in this scheme, Saraswati Vidyalaya, identifies villages in need of a school. It then finds and trains the teachers before opening the school. Each school is run on a budget of less than 75p a day. Information on sponsoring a one-teacher school in Nepal is available from 3R’s head office in Nottingham.

The trust has also financed repairs to school buildings in Kenya.