Mercury Phoenix Trust

Overview

Mercury Phoenix Trust was founded by Brian May, Roger Taylor and their manager Jim Beach in memory of rock band Queen’s iconic lead singer FREDDIE MERCURY who died in 1991 from AIDS related causes.

The dreadful toll of the Covid pandemic is slowly being revealed and it has especially impacted on women and girls, with a huge increase in teenage pregnancies, violence to women, domestic abuse and of course AIDS. Charities estimate much of their work and achievements over the last twenty years has been undone but they are eager to start again and regain lost ground.

For many years, the MPT has focused on funding Education and Awareness projects in the developing world, believing that knowledge and prevention are key to tackling this terrible disease. The projects funded cover a breadth of education and awareness issues, ranging from educating grandparents looking after their grandchildren orphaned by AIDS in Cambodia, to preventing mother to child transmission in South Africa, to HIV awareness theatre in Papua New Guinea and educating sexually active youth globally.

Although the MPT donates to the large NGOs and well-known charities, the greater part of funding goes direct to small grassroots organisations, which the bigger charities tend to overlook. By doing so, the MPT makes a real difference. We are proud of the fact that more that 93p in each pound we raise goes to funding projects spread across the globe and in total the MPT has funded well over 1,500 projects in 57 countries, giving away over 17 million pounds in the global battle against AIDS.