Afghanistan’s Leading Private Philanthropy Received Honor At December 10th Ceremony
The Bayat Foundation, Afghanistan’s largest private, non-profit Health, Education and Social Development Organization, announced today that it has been selected by The Harmony Foundation as a recipient of the 2017 Mother Teresa Memorial International Award For Social Justice.
Dr. Ehsan Bayat – Co-Founder of The Bayat Foundation, and Chairman of The Bayat Group (www.bayat-group.com) – and his wife, Mrs. Fatema Bayat – Executive Director of The Bayat Foundation – jointly accepted the award from Mr. Shri Tushar Arun Gandhi, great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi; Dr. Abraham Mathai, President of Harmony Foundation; and Mr. Jerry Jose, Head of Human Resources at ICICI Lombard.
The ceremony was attended by a number of dignitaries such as Mr. Mohammad Sarwar Danish, Vice President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan; Ms. Yasuko Shimizu, Chief of Mission for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; and Mr. Tushar Gandhi, great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. Other 2017 honorees included Ms. Priyanka Chopra – Indian actress, singer, film producer, and philanthropist – and prolific Japanese architect and Pritzker Prize recipient, Mr. Shigeru Ban for his dedication to creating humanitarian designs that combine the needs of refugees with sustainability.
Established in 2005 by The Harmony Foundation to honor Mother (Saint) Teresa’s lifetime of service to the ‘Poorest of the Poor,’ The Mother Teresa Memorial International Award For Social Justice has been bestowed on Dr. Bayat and The Bayat Foundation, in recognition of The Bayat Foundation’s leading, exceptional and successful efforts to provide the neediest Afghans with food, clothing, health care, education, clean water and other critical and basic building blocks of life, that every human being requires for their protection, preservation and progress.
The Harmony Foundation was established in 2005 by Dr. Abraham Matai. The mission of The Harmony Foundation is to establish peaceful relations and social harmony between communities throughout the world. Prior recipients of Mother Teresa Memorial International Award For Social Justice, include His Holiness, The Dalai Lama, Nana Akufo-Addo, the Former President of Ghana, Doctors Without Borders, and H.E. Bin Zayed Al Nayan, Minister of Foreign Affairs, The United Arab Emirates.
“Saint Teresa of Calcutta embraced the commandment to love, and serve, and improve the lives of the poorest of the poor, as the sacred work, and the sole mission of her life, and we accept the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award For Social Justice with tremendous humility and gratitude,” said Dr. Ehsan Bayat, the Co-Founder and Chairman of The Bayat Foundation.
“In 2006, when my wife Mrs. Fatema Bayat and I started The Bayat Foundation, we had a simple, but powerful wish—we wanted to help provide Afghans with healthcare, education, clean water—the basic necessities of life,” Dr. Bayat said.
“Today, I am proud to note that The Bayat Foundation has sponsored over 300 projects in Afghanistan, including the construction of thirteen hospitals, which have cared for 2,000,000 Afghan mothers and their children” Dr. Bayat said. “We have been blessed by this opportunity to serve Afghans, and every day we try our best to live out the wisdom that Mother Teresa gave to the world, when she said ‘The Greatest Good is what we do for one another.’”