12th Annual Fundraising Dinner
| Author: | SSB |
Description
The 12th Annual PRESET Fundraising Dinner took place on Monday 16th March 2009 at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, London. Over 450 people attended the dinner, which has become a key fixture in the diaries of many in London and further afield. The event was full with renowned faces from the private, public and voluntary sectors, local and central government. Read the full story from the Asian Voice newspaper...
http://epaper.asian-voice.com/AV/AV/2009/04/04/index.shtml and go to page 7.
Read Captain Chandran's here:
PRESET Fundraising Dinner
16 March 2009
Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London
Speech by Captain Kandiah Chandran MBE
Good evening and welcome
It is wonderful to see so many friends and supporters, familiar faces and some new ones.
We are here tonight to share with each other and to share with the people that matter – our young people.
Your presence here means a lot to me personally, but it means even more to the people who benefit from the work done by PRESET.
And none of it would be possible without your support.
This is the 12th PRESET Annual Fundraising dinner, but we come together at a time of huge change. The certainties of recent years are now uncertain and the boom years we began to believe would last forever seem to have come to an end.
It reminds me of a joke I heard:
How do you define optimism? ……A banker who irons five shirts on a Sunday evening…
And what is the difference between an investment banker and a pigeon? ………The pigeon is still capable of leaving a deposit on a new Ferrari…
This might be light-hearted relief from the pressures of the credit crunch, but I know that for many of us, in business and in our personal lives, it is not a laughing matter.
I also know that the current economic climate presents challenges to our communities and to the young people with whom we work.
Our mission, which I know you share, is to help and support the people who education forgot.
We are working to ensure that young people across some of London’s most deprived borough’s have access to mentoring, training, employability and new skills, experience and confidence.
The Government may be bailing out banks with numbers many of us cannot comprehend, but at PRESET it is about one young life at a time.
Let’s consider one such life that had improbable and inauspicious beginnings not dissimilar to those of many of our members.
A personal narrative that tells us that anything is possible.
The key to this story is the power of education, self-belief and hope. This is an unlikely story that is almost fantastical.
Who would have believed that the son of a Kenyan goat herdsman, called Hussein, raised in Hawaii by a single parent would go to Harvard, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, return to Chicago to community work and teaching…… And then on Jan 20th 2009 become the US President.
Aside from the obvious symbolism his personal narrative is very relevant to PRESET’s mission.
It is all about the possible, the audacity of hope as Obama would put it and the power of education.
In our small step by step way we aim to give young disadvantaged members a chance, an opportunity to fulfil and realise their potential.
We cannot accept the mindset and language of “this is not possible, you will have to wait your turn” or any other obstacle that appear to be selective for the most disadvantaged of our community.
PRESET is all about empowering, looking forward and hope. This is true whether you hail from Kenya, Somalia, Willesden or the East End.
Our work depends on you. It depends on all our supporters and it depends on financial support.
So I urge you to dig deep. The Treasury might be hoping for us all to go shopping, but let’s do something far more important…
Let’s change the life and the future of someone you may never meet, but who will, I guarantee you, be an excellent investment – for the community in which he or she lives, and for our country and our future.
I’ve said it many times at dinners over the years – but now – more than ever – the work we do at PRESET depends on your support. I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done and I look forward to a strong future for PRESET and for the young people with whom we work – thanks to you.
So it is 12 years…quite a journey…a long way travelled but still a long way to go.
Thank you again for being here. Enjoy this excellent evening and be generous. Thank you