Let the Festival of Lights Illuminate the Importance of Giving Back
By Dr Nik Kotecha OBE DL, Chairman of the Randal Charitable Foundation
As the illuminating lights of Diwali enrich the lives of the Indian diaspora worldwide, we must also embrace the Festival of Light’s symbolic victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance.
Diwali’s roots stem back to Hindu mythology and the idea of dispelling the darkness of poverty, inequality, and suffering from society – a tradition that empowers a spirit of ‘giving back’ and spreading light, love, and hope to those who need it most.
Beyond the glittering fireworks, colourful rangolis and wonderful food; we are reminded of our responsibility to share our blessings with others, whether this is through donating to charity, volunteering our time, or supporting our families and communities.
Through my family’s charitable foundation – The Randal Charitable Foundation – I have seen first-hand how Diwali has become a celebration of positive social change for today’s modern society.
Inspired by the values of Diwali, the foundation’s unwavering vision is to directly save lives, help the socially disadvantaged and significantly improve the quality of life for those in need in the UK and around the world.
Through grant giving to causes related to the preservation and protection of good health and mental health, the prevention and relief of poverty, and the advancement of education; we have so far directly saved more than 150,000 lives and significantly improved more than 440,000. Our aspiration is to directly save 1 million lives by working with charities and projects that have a direct impact on the lives and livelihoods of the communities they serve.
Diwali has the important ethos of truth, righteousness, peace, love and non-violence, which for many are some of the guiding values for our own lives here in the United Kingdom.
Much of our work in the UK is focussed around helping the most vulnerable people recover and then prosper, following severe mental illness. A key area of focus is helping the most in need to prevent suicides, which claim thousands of lives each year in the UK alone.
By working with a number of charities, including Papyrus – Prevention of Youth Suicide, crisis text service Shout and Ripple Suicide Prevention; we have enabled hundreds of lives to be saved – helping to support sufferers to recover and prosper.
Another key focus area for the foundation is tackling the root causes of addiction, which blights the lives of so many families. Through our work with think-tank, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), we have helped secure an additional £900m in additional government funding for drug treatment services and to rebuild the treatment system, over a 10 year period.
Two more important values of Diwali are togetherness and kindness, which were both tested to the limit during the Covid-19 pandemic and global lockdowns. In response to the government shutdown in India, 137,000 people were forced to leave the cities penniless and without food or supplies; walking hundreds of miles back to their rural homes over a four-month period.
Together, with the British Asian Trust, the Randal Foundation directly saved over 100,000 Indian lives by providing life-saving food rations, and non-essentials such as hygiene equipment, which helped many of the most vulnerable survive the unfolding crisis. We also funded the building of an oxygen generator at a 550 bed Indian Hospital, providing sustainable oxygen to treat patients during and after the pandemic.
More recently I was honoured to travel back to my birthplace of Uganda to officially open a sanitary pad manufacturing plant funded by the foundation, in partnership with the Ugandan Red Cross. The plant will significantly improve the lives of 50,000 women and girls facing period poverty, by providing 200,000 re-usable sanitary pads annually, as well as creating sustainable employment for hundreds more.
This Diwali, as we offer prayers to Lakshmi, the Goddess of Prosperity, it’s important that we also shine a light on how the power of giving can have a transformative impact on the world around us.
Diwali encourages individuals to open their hearts and embrace the spirit of generosity, and reinforces the idea that sharing one’s blessings can illuminate the lives of others.
By embracing gratitude, social responsibility and compassion we all have a part to play in directly alleviating the suffering of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable within our communities and wider society.
On behalf of my family and the Randal Charitable Foundation, we would like to wish everyone a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous Diwali and New Year.
We would like to wish everyone celebrating Diwali 2023 a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous Diwali and New Year.
