Urban Health Institute

The Urban Health Institute, founded by the Premier's son Kevin Brown, is a California-based non-profit organisation aiming to provide direct care, medicine and medical equipment in response to natural and man-made disasters.

According to its website, it enlists pro bono participation from local health care professionals to provide public health education and information about the availability of health-related and special care resources within disadvantaged communities around the globe.

It hosts health education seminars, takes part in quarterly health fairs, buys medical supplies for underserved communities, secures medicines for communities in need, performs complete medical exams and distributes medication.

The website lists its successes as:

• encouraging youth to stay healthy through activities and exercising

• medical missions to Nigeria and Belize to provide medical supplies, medicines and health exams to local villages

• providing medical attention to New Orleans residents evacuated from Hurricane Katrina

• providing health services to tsunami victims in Thailand.

National Urban Technology

The National Urban Technology Center, in New York, is a non-profit corporation which helps underserved communities to fully participate in an information age.

Its website says it has helped created a nationwide network of computer training centres and ground-breaking curriculum that empowers job seekers and inspires youth achievement.

It has a team of trained and dedicated professionals with years of experience in community planning and development, marketing, operations, education, technology, and telecommunications; with a board of volunteers from industry and educational institutions and legal, financial and social service organisations.

Tiny Miracles Foundation

The Tiny Miracles Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to helping families with premature infants in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

Its website says it gives support, information, services and supplies to the families children born too early and those who love and care for them — an emotional service area hospitals are unable to provide.

The group is made up of mothers of premature babies from Fairfield County, Connecticut, who came together because they knew what it was like to be in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Last year it helped 800 families.

Sacred Heart University

Sacred Heart University, in Connecticut, is the second largest Catholic university in New England.

Its website says it provides men and women with a comprehensive, hands-on education rooted in the liberal arts and Catholic intellectual tradition.

It gives students academic opportunities, lets them engage in career-building programmes and become "caring members of the community".