World Zoroastrian Organization

The World Zoroastrian Organisation thanked the Trustees of the Dennis Williams Richards Will Trust, Mr Alex Burns and Ms Jill Ruhomutally, for their extremely generous donation.

 

At the annual Gala Dinner/Dance in aid of the poor Zoroastrian farmers in Gujarat, the Chairman, Mr Sammy Bhiwandiwalla presented each of the two trustees with a special hand written scroll recording WZO’s sincere thanks to them for their magnanimous donation.

 

Alex and Jill, as trustees of the Dennis Williams Richards Will Trust, were looking for potential beneficiaries who in their opinion would do most to improve the lives of the under privileged in India. Alex approached his long time friend Rohinton Irani for assistance in this matter. Rohinton introduced Alex and Jill to Sammy, our Chairman.  At the end of last year, Alex, Jill and Rohinton had identified a number of potential beneficiaries including WZO.  In January of this year Alex and Rohinton went on a fact finding trip, which was hosted by Dinshaw and Baachi Tamboly of WZO, India. So impressed were the pair by the dedication and professionalism of the Tambolys that the trustees decided to allocate £180k of the £400k available in the Will Trust to 7 WZO charity projects. Their confidence in WZO was so great that they also entrusted WZO with the distribution of the remaining £220k to their 13 selected Charity institutions in India. In his introduction, WZO’s President, Mr Darayus S Motivala, thanked Alex and Jill for displaying their confidence in WZO in this manner.

The WZO projects and funds which benefited from this generous donation included the Women and Childrens’ Fund, the Self-employment schemes, the Senior Citizens centre and WZO was able to build 25 basic brick and mortars homes for the poor Zoroastrian farmers in Gujarat. Amongst others, the non-WZO charities that benefited from this generous donation included the Masina Hospital in Bombay, the Jai Vakeel Day School & residential home for the mentally challenged children, the Sneha Sagar Society which aims to keep the under-privileged children off the streets of Bombay, and the Cheshire Home for the physically challenged.

Sammy commented that he could not think of a more befitting occasion to publicly thank Alex Burns and Jill Ruhomutally.  The annual Gala Dinner / Dance, held every year in November, raises around £10,000 each year for WZO’s Gujarat Framers Fund. It is a glittering event attended by hundreds of Zoroastrians and non Zoroastrians who come to have a ball of a time and, at the same time, donating generously to a deserving cause. Next year’s Gala Dinner / Dance will be on Saturday 22nd November 2008 at the Gatwick Hilton.