NE NEWS SERVICE
KANNIYAKUMARI, FEB 3
Chris Parsons, a Britain lawyer and also ambassador of The Loomba Foundation (TLF), a UN-accredited global charity has begun his cycling for a cause from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir on Sunday.
Parson will cover 4,500 km in 45 days to reach Kashmir for the campaign to empower 5,000 beneficiaries – widows and their children.
The TLF has aimed to raise $450,000 for this project in India, plans to extend vocational training in tourism, hospitality, health and beauty, tailoring and food processing to about 5,000 widows.
Embarking on this venture, Chris Parsons said, “Unfortunately, many widows in India are abandoned when their husband dies. This is where The Loomba Foundation comes in. Through their empowerment programmes, the charity provides skills training and other support to help widows become self-sufficient so that they can support themselves and their families. At the end of the day, I am going to try my best and hope to raise much-needed funds along the way for a cause that is very close to my heart.”
“I have seen some of the beneficiaries in Varanasi, who are now self-reliant and educating their children as well as living their life with dignity.”
Lord Loomba CBE, Founder, The Loomba Foundation, said, “According to UN Women, there are 285 million widows around the world and over 500 million children, who through no fault of their own, have faced discrimination and destitution at a time when they are (at their) most vulnerable. The Loomba Foundation has made huge strides over the past two decades in supporting widows, but there is much more work to be done. We are extremely happy to have Chris on board to support this cause, who has already achieved over 60% of his fundraising target.”
Indian organisations such as Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS), Tech Mahindra Foundation, UPL Limited, OYO Hotels and Home, HealthifyMe, Mukul Madhav Foundation, Godrej and Gutenberg Communications have already supported this project.
Educated over 10,000 children of widows in India
In India, the Loomba Foundation to date has educated over 10,000 children of poor widows in all 30 states, who received a monthly scholarship of Rs. 500 per month for five years or more. Besides, the Foundation has empowered over 12,000 impoverished widows, who received skills training in tailoring and upon completion of the training, they were (also) donated a foot-operated sewing machine free of cost.
DMK MLAs N. Suresh Rajan, S. Austin, VOC Port Trust Chairman T.K. Ramachandran, Consultant Gynaecologist and President of Nagercoil Mathar Sangam Sumithra Raghuvaran, Vice-Chancellor of O.P.Jindal Global University C. Raj Kumar, Director of Loomba Foundation Atul Palta were among those present during the flagging off of the cycling programme.
Loomba Foundation
The Loomba Foundation is the first global charity which is committed to empower widows and to educate their children in India and around the world. It was established in the UK in 1997 by Lord Raj Loomba CBE and his wife Lady Veena Loomba, in memory of Lord Loomba’s mother. The Loomba Foundation has sister charities registered in India and the USA. The Loomba Foundation is accredited by the UN Department of Global Communications and the Economic and Social Department (ECOSOC). The core work of the charity is in India; however, it has empowered widows in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal in South Asia; Syria in West Asia; Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, Malawi across Africa; Guatemala and Chile in South America. In addition to empowering widows and educating children of poor widows, the Loomba Foundation is actively engaged in advocacy to improve the lives of widows around the world.
In 2005, the UN adopted 23rd of June as (the) UN International Widows Day at its 65th UN General Assembly in 2010, which was initially launched by the Loomba Foundation at the House f Lords in the UK in 2005.
