VijayEswaran among Forbes'Philanthropy heroesVijay Eswaran, Malaysian entre-

preneur and Executive Chairman ofthe QI (Quest International Group)and controlling shareholder of SriLankan blue chip Asia Capital, fea-tures among the top 48 philanthro-pists in Forbes Asia's annual listof Heroes of Philanthropy in theregion,The list features some of Asia-

Pacific's most high-profile andinteresting givers to society. Fourphilanthropists were picked fromeach of the 12markets in the region.Vijay Eswaran features as one ofthe four from Malaysia alongsideVincent Tan, Koon Yew Yin, andthe husband & wife team of Angela& Hijjas Kasturi. Those featured

VIJayEswaran giving away prizes tounder privileged children at an eventorganlsed by his Foundation In Malaysiafrom India include Shiv Nadar andBollywood actor Vivek Oberoi.Vijay Eswaran, who comes from

a family of philanthropists, hasbeen deeply involved in a num-ber of charitable projects world-wide' through his two foundations- RYTHM and its Malaysian chap-ter, the Vijayaratnam Foundation.While the RYTHM Foundation, reg-istered in Hong Kong is involvedin various initiatives globally inthe areas of education, disasterrelief, children and communitydevelopment, the VijayaratnamFoundation, which Eswaran estab-lished in honour of his philanthro-pist father, is involved in youth andwomen empowerment, arts, culture,child mentoring and environmentprotection projects in Malaysia.

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VijayEswaran ...RYTHMFoundation has

been involved in reha-bilitation projects for someof the most devastatingnatural disasters in recenttimes such as the IndianOcean Tsunami in 2004,the Central Java earthquakein Indonesia in 2006, theTyphoon Ondoy in thePhilippines in 2010 and mostrecently the floods in coastalSri Lanka. VijayaratnamFoundation is well knownfor its project Footprints,a mentoring program forchildren in orphanages,Maharani, a series of edu-cational & empowermentcamps focused on ado-lescent girls from underprivileged backgroundsand Taarana. a centre forchildren with learning dis-abilities.In Sri Lanka, Vijay

Eawaran has been activelyinvolved in the Foundationof Goodness (FOGI,anorganization that aims tonarrow the gap between

urban and rural life bytackling poverty throughproductive activities, and in2007 donated the only pae-diatric laparoscopy machinein Sri Lanka to the LadyRidgeway Hospital. As partof its Tsunami Rehabilitationefforts, Eswaran's RYTHMFoundation set up a team ofvolunteers to distribute reliefmaterial in affected regionsin Sri Lanka and over $5million was donated to vari-ous ~build1n9 projects inthe country.., am deeply humbled by

this honour. I come from afamily where philanthropyha~~m a way of life. Myparents have instilled in methe value of being in ser-vice to others from a youngage~An one of my iconSis M)abatma Gandhi whosete.&hings form the basis ofRYTHM- Raise Yourself ToHelp Mankind, which led tothe inception of $e RYTHMFoundation.

TIle Foundation WIl8

conceived not to pnmar-ily be a donor or a charity,but instead to be a catalystto innovate, inspire andimplement new synergiesthat would allow people tostand on their own feet asopposed to looking for aid.Which is why we focus onthe time and effort we areable to give people in need,as opposed to the size of thecheque. This honour is ulti-mately a recognition of 13years of being in RYTHM.·said Vijay Eswaran on beingchosen as one of the 48Heroes.