Indo-American couple honored for their humanitarian work in India
An Indo-American couple has been honored in the US for making significant contributions to the areas of literacy, education, and healthcare in India. Marie and Vijay Goradia received the Roy M Huffington Award in Houston recently. The award is the highest honor granted by Asia Society Texas Center, and its past recipients include former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, ex-President George W Bush, among others.
About Roy Huffington, after whom the award is named
Announcing the felicitation, Asia Society Texas Center (ASTC) informed that the award was named after their co-founder Roy M Huffington, a philanthropist who founded the Houston-based charity Huffington Foundation and also created the Huffington Center for Aging at the Baylor College of Medicine.
Vijay Goradia: Native of Mumbai, founder-chairman of Vinmar International
Coming back to the Goradias, Vijay, 67, is the Founder and Chairman of Vinmar International, which has been in business for 35 years with a record of continued profitability. In 1998, Vijay, originally from Mumbai, began mulling ways to help his home country and has since become a major fundraiser for Pratham, an education NGO in India, and founded its first American chapter.
Marie Goradia: PhD in molecular biology, research officer at BARC
Meanwhile, Vijay's wife Marie, also from Mumbai, received a Master's degree in biochemistry and a PhD in molecular biology from Bombay University. One of four women to be selected by the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) for their training school, Marie was later appointed as a research officer there. She did her postdoctoral studies at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and New York-based Columbia University.
50mn underprivileged children reaped benefits, courtesy the Goradias
Through Pratham (one of the largest non-governmental organizations in India), the Goradias have affected the lives of more than 50 million underprivileged children in the past two decades. Notably, Pratham USA is listed as one of the top ten charities in Houston by Charity Navigator.
