The FT is today launching a new charity summer spotlight, linked to our successful annual charity seasonal appeal.

The summer spotlight profiles the work of two relatively young, relatively small charities doing what we think is interesting work. Charities have been chosen from the pool of applicants to our seasonal appeal, and selected by the FT’s seasonal appeal committee.

This year’s 2012 summer spotlight charities are:

Railway Children, which works to help runaways in Africa, India, and the UK, many of whom often converge on railway stations. It partners with local NGOs to meet the runaways’ immediate needs and to try to keep them safe from the criminal gangs who prey on them. We’ll be writing about their work in India and the UK.

One Acre Fund, which was founded in 2006 by Andrew Youn, a young MBA student who was moved to help by the rural poverty he encountered on a trip to Kenya. Simply put, OAF deploys business know-how to help some of the world’s poorest farmers. It helps smallholders organise into cooperatives, provides them capital and expertise to buy seeds, fertiliser, and access to markets, and even offers them crop insurance. It now works in Kenya, Burundi, and Rwanda but has big ambitions to scale up. We’ll be looking at their work in western Kenya and also at Andrew Youn’s remarkable story.

FT coverage of Railway Children and One Acre Fund’s work can be found at www.ft.com/spotlight and in the FT newspaper this week.

For more information about our annual seasonal appeal, click here.