Our Story

Hello, I’m Raj.

Back in 2011, I set up our AK Foundation Charity for my son Aakash Khera; he was born in 1993 and was brain damaged at birth and has Cerebral Palsy. After his birth, he was given just 24 hours to live, however, through medical intervention, a great family support network and dedication from my wife and I, he has now turned 30. The lack of oxygen to his brain has left him unable to walk, talk or eat; Cerebral Palsy has affected all four limbs and he is wheelchair-bound.

During the early years of his life he received excellent treatment from Great Ormond Street Hospital for which we will be eternally grateful. The care and support they gave to Aakash and our wider family was life-changing for all of us. He required a specialist operation of a gastrostomy button in his stomach so that he could be tube fed and this life-saving operation could only be carried out at GOSH. There were several other operations he went through in his early years and each stay was rather challenging due to the lack of facilities for parents to stay with their children overnight. In gratitude to Great Ormond Street Hospital, we began to raise money for them on a regular basis to support the hospital and the tireless work they do for all sick children, not just those with CP.

This motivated us to start raising money for the hospital which resulted in setting up the AK Foundation Charity.

We as parents, have been through many challenging times with our son. Therefore, through the AK Foundation Charity, we now help other families experiencing these difficulties; we support them as much as we can with sourcing and purchasing specialist equipment, helping the carers by providing some respite, assisting with care costs, providing day trips/breaks and physiotherapy support.

Raising awareness about Cerebral Palsy is a vital part of what we do. It is our mission to inform the wider public how CP affects children with movement and posture, physical disabilities, seizures as well as other medical disorders. AK Foundation Charity is committed to supporting those who are suffering from CP-related disabilities.

Other ways we support families outside of CP:

Homelessness and reliance on food banks has increased hugely since 2022 with 271,000 people registered as homeless and almost 3 million people regularly using food banks to feed themselves and their families. With some of the funds we have been raising we have been feeding our homeless communities, providing warm clothing and sleeping bags. We also help school children from low income families by providing food parcels to their schools during the holidays. During Christmas 2022, we provided Lilliput Nursery and Junior School in Iver with food parcels for 23 families and we would like to continue providing this vital support through the kind donations we receive.

AK Foundation Charity is a UK-based charity established in 2011 and registered with the UK Charity Commission (Charity No 1143251).