Mauritius-born Isabella Le Bon-Poonoosamy arrived in the UAE three years ago, and joined a group of volunteers struggling to raise money to prevent the closure of the Special Care Centre (SCC) in Abu Dhabi. Following this, she set up the Good Heart Foundation, which aims to raise awareness of special needs and further promote the profile of the SCC. Good Heart has managed to raise enough money to cover the annual cost of the centre and make it more financially stable.

Following a 24-hour layover in Dhaka in 2005, Portuguese flight attendant Maria Conceicao made it her mission to offer the Dhaka slum dwellers a better future with her self-funded charity, The Dhaka Project. With her dedicated team of volunteers and 90 Bangladeshi staff, Maria’s vision won her a European Union Woman’s Inventors and Innovators Network award. She is currently expanding her aid to Burmese refugee children in Thailand and orphans in Brazil.

British artist Sonia Brewin has been working as a volunteer since she was just 16, winning her a Millennium Award for service in the UK. After moving to Dubai in 2007 to launch START, a charity which uses art as a platform to change the lives of children with special needs, she has worked across Lebanon, Jordan, and the UAE. Her weekly sessions with the children continue to be the most rewarding experience of her life and she loves seeing their achievements.

With a Bachelor of Dental Surgery and previous voluntary work for the Emirates Arthritis Foundation, Dr Cathy Leibman was appointed the Director of Operations for the foundation in September 2007 to help raise awareness appropriately on the political health agenda. Since then she has been invited to speak at numerous community groups and is now raising money for her latest endeavour, the Raey Home in Ethiopia.