Our Story


Alan meeting children on his first trip to South America.

Alan meeting children on his first trip to South America.

The Alma Foundation was created by Alan Harman after a lengthy family trip through South America in 2008. He was deeply moved by the poverty and grace he experienced in remote indigenous communities in Southern Peru, and was inspired to help improve the quality of life there.

After consulting development experts in Peru and Canada, he decided that investing in early childhood education would provide the greatest opportunity to improve well-being over the long term.

He developed a set of guiding principles that he felt would have a sustainable impact and founded the Alma Children’s Education Foundation in 2010 based on those principles.

Since then the charity has developed it’s own unique play-based and project-based curriculum focused on critical thinking. The curriculum is derived 100% from local context, culture and language.

Alma has been profiled in the Globe and Mail, and Reader’s Digest.

Alma was awarded the Peruvian Chamber of Commerce “Award of Special Recognition” in 2013.

To learn a bit more about us, watch our video below.