Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 28 August 2006 - Beacon Education a local company committed to raising the standard of education and how it is delivered throughout the region, are delighted to announce that Peter Dalglish will be speaking to their teachers at the annual Beacon Education Orientation Day.  Peter is the founding member of Street Kids International, a non-profit organisation that teaches street children the value of hard work and discipline to help them improve their lives.  Having worked with more than 2 million street kids in over 60 countries, Street Kids International has been recognised by the United Nations as a Global Best practice leader in youth work.

There are over 100 million street kids world wide living in both rich and poor countries. Through global issues such as poverty, war, AIDS and political instability these youths have been orphaned, abused and forced to the streets to become income earners.

Street Kids International was founded in 1987 and has become a global leader in designing creative self-help projects for poor urban children.  For example, Karate Kids, an animated film about HIV prevention, has been distributed in over 100 countries in 25 different languages, making it the single largest initiative for street children anywhere in the world.  Because of its success, Street Kids International received the Peter F Drucker Award for Non-Profit Innovation in 1994.

Ziad Azzam, CEO of Beacon Education points out, "We firmly believe in the importance of inspiring young minds and we are thus pleased that Peter has agreed to talk about international schools without borders, a topic that relates to our international setting and can provide new insights into the plight of less advantaged children around the world, the great successes achieved through education and how, through our teachers, we can help them.  A large part of modern education includes a community service component and the intention is for our teachers to expose our students to real life issues."

During his stay in Dubai, Peter has agreed to visit all Beacon Education schools and further detail opportunities for the students and teachers to become involved with charity that has far-reaching consequences for the future.  Having worked with Mother Theresa, Peter is often heard quoting one of her poignant sayings: "We cannot do great things, we can only do small things with great love" - a mantra that we should all live by.

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About Beacon Education:
Beacon Education was established to address the growing need for high quality schools in the Middle East. Dubai is the platform from which Beacon launched its initial projects, with four education facilities that opened in September 2005. Beacon Education is financed by Taaleem, a unique Private Joint Stock Company that over the next six to eight years will invest over AED 1 billion in educational ventures across the region.

With quality at the forefront, Beacon Education will tailor each project to answer the specific educational needs of families by offering a comprehensive choice of outstanding international curricula from American to British to the International Baccalaureate. The following schools fall under the Beacon Education banner: Al-Mizhar American Academy for Girls, The Children's Garden, Dubai British School, Uptown School and Raha International School.

For more information, please contact:
Alice Markson (PR Manager) / Melissa Jarvinen (Marketing Manager)
Beacon Education
Tel:  +971 4 349 8806
Fax: +971 4 349 8807
E-mail:   amarkson@beacon.ae / mjarvinen@beacon.ae
Website: www.beacon.ae

More information about Street Kids International can be found on www.streetkids.org

Peter Dalglish is also author of "The Courage of Children".

© Press Release 2006