Beneficiaries
The Fiona Foundation is a charitable fund set up to continue to bring Fiona’s sense of achievement, joy, colour and humour to the places and projects that in her life gave her opportunity, support, love and friendship. The main areas of our support will initially be as follows:
St John’s Primary School
We will support the Spanish exchange programme for year 5 and year 6 children with Nigran.
We will present flowers for the year 6 leavers’ mass in July each year for each leaver’s family to enjoy after the conclusion of the school year.
Our Lady of St John Parish Church
We will grow a small garden at the entrance to the church grounds including a silver birch tree and other flora that Fiona loved; this will complement the Celtic Cross already on the site.
Newcastle University
We have a long a successful relationship with Newcastle University. It is close to our hearts as it was where Fiona studied and now as the years have passed many of the Foundation’s supporters own children have studied there.
Over the last 10 year we have provided scholarships for women in engineering. However, this year we have changed our focus to raise interest in STEM education at an earlier age. We have supported the KATS (Kids Education Through Science) programme which will culminate in a prize giving day in Newcastle in June 2023.
St Andrews University
In 2022 we started to support the Beyond the Walls programme run form St. Andrews University. The programme grew from their Cell Block Science programme of informal learning in Scottish prisons concentrating on the relevance and application of academic research to the lives of the prison learners, their families and communities. Beyond the Walls is a pilot to extend this work to family engagement and raising the aspirations of the family members of prisoners.
Trinity Hall, Cambridge
In 2021 we introduced the Fiona Karran prize at Trinity Hall College Cambridge, awarding a prize to a female student for achievement in STEM subjects.