9 January, onlinekhabar.com
Melbourne-based businessman and president of Non Resident Nepali Association (NRNA) Shesh Ghale on Thursday announced a charity trust worth Rs one billion, the largest ever to open in Nepal.
Ghale and his wife Jamuna Gurung have a combined net worth of $265 million made from real estate, tourism and education business. Ghale's MIT Group Holdings has also invested Rs 8 billion for construction of Sheraton Hotel in Kathmandu.
An excerpt from Ghale's speech during the press meet:
Today is the happiest day of our lives. By us I mean my wife, Jamuna and I. We cannot begin to describe in words the happiness we feel today, giving back a small portion of what the society has given us. We owe what we have and who we are to the society and the country.
Although we have been involved in various philanthropic activities through different organisations in the past, we felt we needed to act in a more organised and comprehensive way to help make big impacts. MIT Group Foundation is the result of years of homework we have done in order to make social changes. Through the foundation, my wife and I will invest a portion of our total earnings for the development of health and education sectors in Nepal.
Both my wife and I know what's it's like to go through life without resources. We were born in rural villages of Lamjung to poor families. Even though our parents were uneducated, they understood the importance of education and enrolled us in schools. I remember the hard work my father had to put in to send me to school.
It was only because of the available scholarships that we got a chance to study further. I studied engineering on a scholarship and moved to Australia in search of better opportunities. If it wasn’t for the fair system there we wouldn’t have achieved what we have today.
This is why we have planned to invest in the education sector so that the students in remote part of the country do not have to drop out of schools and search for jobs abroad. We will provide financial aid to students from economically weak families as well as help develop needed infrastructures and resources for schools.
People in remote parts of the country still don’t have access to basic health care services. I know how it feels to lose a family due to lack of health services. We don’t want others losing their loved ones due to access to even basic health care and inexpensive medicines. Therefore, to help develop the education as well as the health sector in Nepal, we are announcing a charity fund of Rs one billion.
I know that this amount isn’t enough to drastically improve Nepal's health and education sector, but we promise to add more as we go along. We are ready to partner with any organisation willing to help us. We have already started works on the organisational structure of the foundation and will begin functioning once we recognise the important areas and projects.
Our social investments will be fully transparent and the selection and impact of the project will be done as per international standards.
I hope this initiative will be beneficial to the society and we look forward to assistance from the Nepal government, social organisations, society and the media.