From medicine to environmentally-sustainable agriculture, students educated at Pestalozzi are having an effect on the world in many diverse ways.

The charity educates bright but impoverished young people from nine third world countries (eight countries plus Tibetans in exile) in East Sussex with the ultimate ambition they will return to their native countries and effect change there.

Without finance, none of it is possible and the efforts of the island branch of the charity - which has raised many thousands of pounds over the years - is particularly appreciated.

Its main fundraising event, this year held at the home of Joanna Crookall at Grenaby, raised £5,000.

Trustee Graham Card attended and gave an overview of the charity and his involvement. His background working at Barclays and then as an international commercial finance broker led to raising finance for the charity, particularly from the business community. The key is to introduce potential donors to students he said.

’The students are tremendously engaging,’ he said. ’The more you know them the more engaging they become. They grab opportunity and make the most of it.’

He and his wife Julia are also a host family, giving support to students from days out to roast dinners.

He has been particularly struck by Nelisa from Zambia, a student at Pestalozzi from 2009 to 2011, who has won a Rhodes scholarship to study biology at Oxford University.

Another is Chris from Uganda, who is in his fourth year studying environmentally sustainable agriculture at a university in Costa Rica.

Chris’s family was so poor, they couldn’t afford for him to go to school, he would hide outside the school room eavesdropping on lessons.

He plans to return to Uganda to help with the multitude of environmental challenges it faces.

’They don’t complain, they get on and graft. Being a host family I get more out of it than the students. I feel very paternalistic about it,’ said Graham.

’The world is a messed up place, I can only do something about the bit of the world that touches me.

’I’m 64 now, I’m very much in that time of wanting to put something back and Pestalozzi lets me do that.’

At a time of increased racial attacks in Britain, do the students experience hostility?

’No. If anything the students remind people they are just normal people,’ he said.