Sitting in the middle of a group of studious children, Suman looks up at the camera with a contented smile on her face.There are about 30 children sitting side by side in a small one room tin shack - they are the latest of over 1200 children from the Pune slum who have been through Suman’s extra-curricular education system in 15 years. You can almost hear the hum as they pour over their schoolbooks.

Over-crowded government schools are unable to give these children the attention required to learn the basics so Suman has provided somewhere for them to study with extra help. Through years of faithful work, the children attending this impromptu tuition centre have shown such an academic improvement that a local school has actually requested that these children attend his school, this is nothing short of miraculous in India’s oversubscribed school system.

In addition to their work with children Suman and her husband EJ have helped over 900 women become literate within the slum. Their small primary healthcare clinic (run from the corner of the school room) has had such an impact on the community that the government have asked them to replicate it in some of the 450 slum communities in the Pune area.

This is only scratching the surface of the work they do, but they are already full of stories of lives changed and small actions with a huge impact. It is clear that they have found joy in their work and in living side by side with those they help.