Meera Gandhi
Meera T. Gandhi | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (Executive Education Program) Boston University (M.B.A.) University of Delhi (Bachelor's in Economics) |
| Website | http://www.meeragandhi.com http://www.thegivingbackfoundation.org |
Meera T. Gandhi is a humanitarian. She is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Giving Back Foundation and is noted for her Life Motto, "We are to the universe only as much as we give back to it."
Early life, Education & Personal
Meera was born in Mumbai, India to an Irish mother and an Indian father.[1] At the age of 16, she met Mother Teresa and worked with her helping children.[2] This is when she realized the joys of giving to others.
She attended The Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai, India, and the United World of Colleges in Canada. Meera later received a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Delhi, and an M.B.A. from Boston University School of Management. In 2007, Meera completed the Executive Education Program at Harvard Business School.[1]
Meera has been married to Vikram Gandhi since 1986, and lives in New York City with her husband and three children.[3]
Charitable Activities
Meera is the founder and CEO of The Giving Back Foundation, a foundation geared towards alleviating illness, poverty and suffering while also addressing education issues which affect women and children around the world.[1] The Giving Back Foundation supports many entities with scholarships and grants which have been very carefully selected, and most often with 5-year commitments. Through her Foundation, she devotes her life to charity and help for those in need, notably abused and hungry children, widows, the sick, the deaf and blind. She is particularly interested in education as the stepping stone to success.[4] Meera has supported charities with strong female leadership programs and workshops, in part because of the role models in her life: Hilary Clinton, Cherie Blair, and Meera's own mother, an Irish woman living in India. These charities include the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women in the United Kingdom and the Eleanor Roosevelt Leadership Center in the United States[5].
Meera’s Giving Back Foundation is involved in a number of philanthropic programs which include: providing, on an annual basis, awards & honorariums to teenage students at the Eleanor Roosevelt Leadership Center;[6] providing annual grants to South Asia college students for their studies at Baruch College in New York City; and a five-year commitment to the Woodstock Film Festival which includes providing annual honorariums and awards to people involved in filmmaking whose work serves to causes social change. In 2011 Meera presented the first annual Meera Gandhi Giving Back award to Mark Ruffalo. The award is given each year at the Woodstock Film Festival to the director, producer or actor who best delivers a message of social change and who has a strong compassion for philanthropy. Subsequent winners of the award were actor, director and screenwriter Tim Blake Nelson in 2012 and acclaimed filmmaker and activist Mira Nair in 2013[7].
One of the Foundation’s larger projects is the adoption of New Delhi's St. Michael's School in India. As a result of the Foundation’s 5-year commitment to the school, the children of St. Michael's School are provided with meals on a daily basis and have had their entire school and its grounds refurbished. New features of the school include the hostel, the playground, and a new school block filled with bright classrooms[8]
.
Other charities Meera is involved with either directly or through her Foundation include the Happy Home and School for the blind in Mumbai, the Robert F. Kennedy Centre for Justice & Human Rights, the Cambodian Landmine Relief Fund, Centrepoint, Give to Colombia and The American Friends of Prince William and Prince Harry[9].
Meera’s Foundation has also contributed to certain institutions of learning. In 2012, the Foundation funded a high-powered, state-of-the-art telescope, which was installed on the roof of the Harrow School in London[10].
Publications
She recently produced and directed a musical CD entitled Giving Back featuring a host of International artists including Marco Figueira, Lucia Hwong Gordon, Juliet Hanlon, David Harilela and Chandrika Tandon. She also authored a coffee table book, and produced a documentary film, both of which are also entitled "Giving Back."[11]
Both the documentary film and book are meant to demonstrate the philanthropic efforts of her friends and those who inspire her,[12] including Cherie Blair, Kerry Kennedy, Patricia Velásquez, Kristi Yamaguchi, Steven Rockefeller,[13] Francine Le Frak, Raj Loomba, Clodagh, Donna Karan, Ronan Tynan, Deborah Norville, Hillary Clinton, The American Friends of the Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry, Narciso Rodriguez and interviews with Bono and others[14] Alex Counts, President and CEO of Grameen Foundation, found Meera's message of "giving back" to ring true: "'giving back' - when done thoughtfully and in the right spirit - does not leave the donor with less, but rather with more.".[15] The documentary film was sold out at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2011. One hundred percent of the proceeds from Meera Gandhi’s Giving Back Foundation projects will go to charity.
Meera was a part of a panel discussion hosted by the Asia Society about her book. The other panelist includes Donzelina Barroso, senior advisor with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and moderated by Alisyn Camerota, host of Fox and Friends Weekend. The discussion included ways to encourage teens and children to "give back" at an early age.[16]
Awards and recognition
She has received numerous awards, including person of the year in 2010 from the Wayúu Tayá Foundation, and in 2011 Donna Karan International named her as one of its “Women Who Inspire.”[17] In 2011 she received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Boston University, the University’s highest honor. In June, 2007 she and her husband, Vikram Gandhi, were honored by One To World at its annual Fulbright Awards Dinner in New York. Recently, she was awarded with the Corporate Global Humanitarian award for 2013 also in New York.
In the words of Kerry Kennedy, "Meera Gandhi is one of those remarkable women whom the angels must have sent to teach us a lesson on how to conduct a fruitful life.”
References
- ^ a b c http://www.salwanmedia.com/meera-t-gandhi.htm
- ^ http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/meera-gandhi-the-giving-back-foundation-india-business-mother-teresa/1/163350.html
- ^ http://www.whomyouknow.com/2009/09/movers-and-shakers-meera-gandhi-ceo-of.html#.UuKWuBAo6M8
- ^ http://www.ashacentre.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=itemlist&task=user&id=66%3Asteveetter&limitstart=220
- ^ http://www.bwl.org/RelId/606539/infogroup/4006/registered/1/pagenum/2/ISvars/showpage/Humanitarian_and_Philanthropist_Meera_Gandhi_Speaks_at_Winter_Convocation.htm
- ^ "GLW Program Report". ELEANOR ROOSEVELT LEADERSHIP CENTER AT VAL-KILL 2013: 7. 2013.
{{cite journal}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ^ http://www.woodstockfilmfestival.com/press/releases/2013_08_givingback.htm
- ^ http://goodnewsplanet.com/st-michaels-renovation/
- ^ http://www.bibimagazine.com/meera-gandhi/
- ^ http://www.harrowassociation.com/netcommunity/document.doc?id=608
- ^ http://www.lassiwithlavina.com/24_7_talkischeap/meera-gandhi-on-giving-back/html
- ^ "The ASHA Centre". Retrieved September 5, 2012. To find out more information about "Giving Back", including a link to the trailer for the documentary film, please visit Meera's website at "The Giving Back Documentary Film". Retrieved November 5, 2012.
- ^ https://questmag.com/blog/re-cap-of-meera-gandhis-film-screening-giving-back/
- ^ http://www.indiapost.com/meera-gandhi’s-new-coffee-table-book/
- ^ Counts, Alex (May 17, 2012). "Giving Back: A Simple and Powerful Idea". Grameen Foundation. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
- ^ http://www.indiapost.com/giving-back-discussed-at-meera-book-signing/
- ^ http://www.claudiachan.com/woman/meera-gandhi/
- "NIGHTLIGHT: Mover and Shaker Meera Gandhi presents the 3rd Annual Giving Back Award to acclaimed Director Mira Nair at the Woodstock Film Festival" retrieved October 9, 2013.