THREADS OF CHANGE

JUST 12 years after it was founded on an unlikely mission to break the cycle of poverty in an AIDS-stricken African community, the

Cotton On Foundation is set to pass an extraordinary achievement.

This Christmas, it will reach $100 million raised.

These days the philanthropic arm of Geelong’s international retail company the Cotton On Group delivers projects to empower youth through education programs in Uganda, South Africa, Thailand and Australia.

And, with the help of its customers, it is improving and saving an untold number of lives.

The milestone celebrates a legacy created by Cotton On founder Nigel Austin, who in 2007 answered a plea for help from a priest from Mannya, in Southern Uganda, a village referred to locally as the birthplace of HIV.

A request for a donation to complete a healthcare centre in the village quickly turned into a commitment to have a lasting impact by investing in education as a means of empowering the children there to break the cycle of poverty.

In 2013, the Cotton On

Foundation announced its mission and dedication of

$40 million towards quality education at the Global Citizen Festival in New York’s Central Park in front of 60,000 people and 20 million US viewers, kickstarting the global momentum of the foundation, which has since raised more than $80 million.

Overcoming barriers to education remains central to the Cotton On Foundation’s mission. It is dedicated to creating secondary, tertiary and vocational pathways for every child and what started in the devastated village of Mannya, now reaches 23 schools across the globe.

Cotton On says the education programs have directly supported 12,500 students and more than 100,000 individuals in communities and the foundation has delivered 17 million meals to students and given 46,000 children access to healthcare.

Next month it will officially open the Ethekwini Primary School in Durban, South Africa, which will cater for

1280 students. The foundation believes it could be a launch pad for its largest impact area globally in the next five years.

To mark the $100 million milestone, Cotton On