The Sparkle Foundation Podcast is where we shine a light on the extraordinary people behind our mission: volunteers, changemakers, and champions who show up, roll up their sleeves, and prove that one person really can make a difference. Each episode is an honest, unscripted conversation about what drives people to give back, and what happens when they do. Hosted by Sarah Brook, Founder and CEO of The Sparkle Foundation.



Zoheb Sayyed is part of the team at Revo Realty, a Dubai real estate company built on an unusual model: a fixed percentage of every commission goes to charity before profit is even discussed. Two weeks before this conversation, he'd landed back from Revo's first ever trip to Malawi.

Before Zoheb boarded the flight, he had to talk his own wife round. Africa, to her, meant danger. "Are you going Africa? Are you sure about it? Do you know how safe it is?" she asked him, worried about recent reports of Ebola on the continent. 

Zoheb didn't budge. "I'm going for a charity trip, I don't care. I have to go. I need to be there." 

What he found on the ground was nothing like the myth. He was struck by how welcoming and safe Malawi felt, and by how many Indian expats he met there who told him the same thing. "You will not come to know until you go there personally and check the on-field status," he reflects. 

Revo Realty's approach to charity is baked into the business itself, not funded from what's left over. Zoheb explains it plainly: for every commission earned, a set percentage goes straight to charity before the company or its people take their share. 

"Even if you're earning 100,000 a month, 20,000 will directly go into charity," he says, and that's non-negotiable company policy for every person who joins. 

It isn't drawn from profit either, which Zoheb sees as the real difference. "There are companies who do charity, but from their profits. What they earn, they get the profits, then they do charity. Revo is doing charity not from their profit, but from their business. Even if we are doing a loss in that month, charity will still go." 

Of everything Zoheb saw in Malawi, one moment stayed with him most: meeting an 86-year-old woman named Emily, sleeping on a mud floor with no blanket in temperatures close to freezing. 

"If my grandmother were alive today, she would be her age," he says. "It was very emotional for me." 

For Sarah, the moment carried extra weight. Emily has been one of her longest standing supporters in Malawi, and a promise to get her a proper mattress had been made months earlier and not yet kept. Zoheb's team made sure that changed, arranging a blanket, clothes, shoes and a mattress before they left. "That reaction, that happiness, that dance from her," Zoheb says. "That made us so happy." 

When Revo first discussed the trip, Zoheb assumed they'd bring cash to hand out directly. Sarah talked him out of it, and he now understands why. 

Handing out money creates dependency and can quietly damage the goodwill a community has built, whereas transferring funds properly protects the relationship on the ground. It's a lesson Zoheb has taken seriously enough to now argue the opposite case himself, to anyone who suggests charity is just writing a cheque. 

Revo has already built schools elsewhere, but Malawi has sparked something bigger. Zoheb describes plans for a full school in Malawi, from kindergarten through to university, so that a child could complete their entire education without leaving the area.

"I want the person who is staying nearby that vicinity to come here, start from kindergarten, and exit from the college," he says. 

Alongside it, Revo is exploring building a factory that could create two to three hundred local jobs, generating income that could fund the charity's work on an ongoing basis rather than relying solely on donations. 

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The Sparkle Foundation delivers education, nutrition, healthcare, and community empowerment programmes to women and children in Malawi. With 30,000+ lives impacted and four sites and growing, every contribution makes a direct, lasting impact. 

• Sponsor a child for 150 AED a month. This provides one child with access to healthcare, education, and two daily nutritious meals for an entire month. 
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