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The Loomba Foundation is named after a remarkable lady, Shrimati Pushpa Wati Loomba, who had become a widow at the early age of 37 and who, in the face of many obstacles, made sure all seven of the family’s children, boys and girls, completed their education and got the best opportunities to succeed in life.
When Mrs Loomba passed away, her son Raj and his wife Veena, set up a charity in her memory with the express aim to make sure that the children of poor widows, who were in a less fortunate position, could also complete their education and over the decade that followed at least a hundred children in each state of India, and I many cases more, had their education paid for at least five years each, transforming not only their own lives but those of their families.
Raj in his mission to bring the plight of widows all over the world to the attention of the international community, the Loomba Foundation, in 2005, on Raj’s initiative, launched International Widows Day, at the House of Lords in London, and Raj had picked 23 June, the date his mother had been widowed fifty-one years earlier, as the date on which every year there would be a global day of action. After a tireless campaign by the Loomba Foundation, the United Nations adopted 23rd June as an UN International Widows Day in 2010.
Building on the success of its work to educate poor widows’ children, the Loomba Foundation started its focus on economic empowerment – helping widows to become independent through skills training and supporting them in setting themselves up in a trade or a business, working with partners including Youth Business International, a charity that had been set up by King Charles III when he was Prince of Wales, Oxfam GB, Virgin Unite, to deliver skills training and equipment to thousands of widows across three continents, including in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Syria, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, Malawi, Guatemala and Chile.
The Loomba Foundation wants to support the 46 million widows in India, particularly those who live in dire poverty and in rural areas. There can be no more valuable or important work than empowering widows who have been cast aside by society and left unable to look after themselves and their children, to give them the skills and the means to help themselves in a wide range of trades from hospitality to tourism, sewing and tailoring to beauty and healthcare, and food processing. These women have so much to give, if only we can give them the respect and the power to make their own contribution to society. They can educate their children and lead a life of dignity.