Swarovski Foundation Q&A: Education, Water, Equality & SDGs

Inequality, climate stress and the need for meaningful work are reshaping how livelihoods are built. 

Philanthropy is moving from charity to systems change, with education at its core.

Founded in 2013, the Swarovski Foundation channels the company’s long-held commitment to giving into focused social and environmental impact.

Today, the Foundation promotes sustainable livelihoods through education, backing initiatives across Equity, Water and Creativity and delivering two flagship programmes: Waterschool and Creatives for Our Future.

Its reach is global and practical. 

Since inception the Foundation has supported more than 2m people in 93 countries through 85 partnerships aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Jakhya Rahman-Corey is steering that mission. 

Joining as a Programme Officer and becoming Director in four years, Jakhya leads the Foundation to be a proactive participant, supporter and champion of work that enables communities to thrive.

Her commitment began at 14 while volunteering in a local charity shop. 

Since 2010 she has lived and worked with international charities worldwide, gaining hands-on experience in fieldwork, sanitation and structural improvements in rural areas and tackling social and environmental injustices.

In this interview with Sustainability Magazine, Jakhya shares how the Swarovski Foundation is scaling education-led solutions that unlock opportunity and resilience.

What is the Swarovski Foundation?

Since 2013, the Swarovski Foundation’s mission is to promote sustainable livelihoods through education to reduce inequality. 

We focus on three core areas: equity, creativity and water and deliver this through key initiatives. 

This year, our Waterschool, which sits under the water pillar, marks its 25th anniversary.

Through this initiative, we work alongside local partners to educate young people on sustainable water practices to address their local water challenges and improve water security globally. 

The Waterschool has reached 800,000 young people across six regions: North America, South America, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa and Australia. 

The Waterschool aims to create a generation of water advocates and spark a lifelong commitment to water stewardship, climate resilience and sustainable development.

Separately, our equity pillar's Action Fund provides urgent crisis support grants through partners like the British Red Cross and UK for UNHCR. 

The creativity pillar's Creatives for Our Future programme empowers the next generation of creative talent to unlock innovative solutions to our global sustainability challenges.

Together, partners across all our core areas have helped us reach more than two million people in 93 countries worldwide.

These key initiatives exist in tandem with the work we do within each core area, where we work with dedicated partners who are experts in their field and of their local contexts.

How do the Foundation's partnerships help impact the environment?

Partnerships are at the heart of how we work.

By collaborating with organisations on the ground, we ensure that environmental solutions are rooted in local realities. 

For example, through our Water pillar, we partnered with Conservation International in Costa Rica to restore mangrove ecosystems. 

Our partnership has resulted in more than 2,200 metres of mangrove channels dug by the community, allowing more than 1,000 seedlings to regenerate naturally. 

More importantly, women-led groups have sparked negotiations with a local cooperative based in Nicoya Peninsula to sell their community-made products to hotels and restaurants. 

This kind of forward momentum that’s owned and led by the community is exactly what we strive for.

Within the Creatives for Our Future programme, there really is no limit and our alumni are helping to solve issues like access to water, refugee housing, waste reduction, bio-based textiles, water-saving dye technologies and sustainable architecture.

How can education and innovation help tackle global water inequality?

Less than one percent of global freshwater is usable for human needs and it’s distributed unevenly across the world’s 8 billion people. 

Growing up, my father always told me education was the wealth that could never be taken away.

This is why we focus on education to reduce inequality. 

The Waterschool therefore adapts to each setting and uses education to empower communities to be water stewards and co-designers of solutions which best suit their needs.

Innovation is what allows us to translate that education and knowledge into action. 

Thanks to our local partners on the ground and the close work they do with their beneficiaries, we’ve seen a wealth of examples of innovation in the WASH sector. 

When young people learn how water connects to health, food and climate, they become stewards for their communities and advocates for global water security. 

By combining education with innovation, we can tackle both the systemic inequalities in access to clean water and the practical challenges of building resilience in the face of climate change.

How does the Foundation create sustainable development through education?

At the Swarovski Foundation, we see education as the pathway to equity and opportunity.

Our initiatives provide both formal, non-formal and informal learning opportunities: from teaching schoolchildren along the Amazon about water conservation, to equipping young designers with the tools to innovate for sustainability. 

We also focus on seeking out long-term partnerships and projects. 

Through more than ten years of experience, we have learnt that consistent, long-term commitments are essential to building sustainable livelihoods. 

Strategic collaborations are key for enabling scalable solutions that are grounded in reality, so that they can genuinely be put into practice. 

Our job is to be fluid in our support by listening, adapting and ensuring each participant has what they need.

In this way, education becomes more than classroom learning - it becomes a driver of sustainable livelihoods. 

It equips people to secure income, support their families and lead change from within their communities. 

That ripple effect is how we help turn education into long-term sustainable development.