Lord Rana to special guest at Academy’s Asha Fundraising Dinner

The event is to raise funds to support the work of the charity, Asha, helping children in the slums of Delhi.

Asha’s objective is to transform lives by making healthcare more accessible, empowering people to make changes and improving access to education.

A team of 13 pupils and three teachers from Ballymena Academy will be heading out to work with the charity for 10 days at the end of October.

Academy Principal, Mr JR Hassard said: “We are privileged that Lord Rana has accepted out invitation to come to Ballymena Academy next month. Not only does he promote business links between Northern Ireland and India but he is also passionate about education and has set up a charitable trust to create a college in his native village in India.

“He is familiar with the work of Asha and we very much look forward to welcoming him to Ballymena Academy”.

The dinner will be the final fundraising event and will include a presentation by team members about their trip, their aspirations and how the funds raised will be used.

An auction of generously donated items will take place conducted by leading auctioneer Richard Bell and the evening will be concluded with Lord Rana’s keynote speech.

One of the leaders of the group, Miss Toni Bassett, said: “The dinner will be the culmination of a very active and successful six months of fundraising. It is hard to believe that in seven weeks time the team will actually be in India seeing first had the uses to which these funds can be put and we are all very excited at the prospect”.

Tickets for the dinner are priced £20 each and can be ordered by contacting Hilary Taylor on 25652350.