This year’s Take Heart Ball will be taking place at Kensington’s Roof Gardens in London tonight, 1 October. The jungle fever themed fundraiser will again attract over 600 young socialites, including royalty, celebrities and budding entrepreneurs.
Guests at last year’s event included Princess Beatrice, Peaches Geldof and Sam Branson, son of Sir Richard Branson, who is also a key member of the Take Heart Charity Committee. This year the Roof Gardens will be transformed into an urban jungle: affluent Tarzans and glamorous Janes partying into the wee hours, the flash of wild animal print passing through the dark jungle foliage, off to claim their prey at the nearest bar.
Charity Director and event organizer, Lucian Tarnowski, describes Take Heart as “a youth-focused, young charity that has a loyal supporters group of future business leaders.” Take Heart, a purely voluntary charity, directs 100% of its proceeds into providing valuable I.T. training to blind students in rural India, enabling them to get jobs and support themselves, without having to beg. Money made from previous balls has helped build a school, which has now helped several thousand able-bodied students and hundreds of blind students gain a job for life with their new found IT skills. Again, all proceeds from this year’s Ball will go into the next stage of the school’s development.
The Take Heart Committee chaired by Lucian Tarnowski, also includes Simon Ambrose, winner of BBC 1’s The Apprentice, as well as Pete Ward and Jerome Touze, Founders of global social network Wayn.com. The Committee has organized an auction as the main money-making focus on the night with lots being donated by Richard Branson, Virgin Airlines, Swarovski, Breitling, L’Oréal and Aura Ibiza, to name a few.
Founded by Count Arthur Tarnowski in 1963, Take Heart is a visionary charity that has provided aid and rehabilitation to the physically handicapped people of rural India. Wheelchair-bound from his late twenties, Arthur Tarnowski visited India on a two year assessment of the plight of those people with disabilities. There he set up Take Heart with the legendary Baba Amte in partnership with Anandwan and the institution, Maharogi Sewa Samiti. Since then Take Heart has established a working future for thousands of people in rural India. Costing just £37 to provide a six month IT and English language training course per student, this can secure a job for life.
Take Heart holds dear to its principles of actually helping people to help themselves through education and skill training, rather than just giving them money. The Take Heart parent institution has the close support of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
For more info, visit www.takeheartindia.org.
