The very first project was the rebuilding of the local Karakurchi Pudur school in our ancestors’ hometown in South India. After rebuilding the high school compound walls, renovating and enhancing their bathroom facilities, and revamping their learning centers and offices, we were able to impact hundreds of children by enabling them a better learning environment. In another instance, we found ourselves amazed that people such as our father, hailing from poor rural and backward communities in India, were successful.

The school was malnourished, and conditions have not changed since, so we felt compelled to take action. Therefore, we formed a family nonprofit charity called “The Raj Foundation,” and we coordinated an effort to adopt the public high school our father attended. We, along with the school administration and local government education officers, organized an enhancement plan that we named “Resurrection” in our mother tongue. Phase I is being executed, and it consists of renovating a concrete compound wall around twenty acres of playground land, installing water facilities for the staff and students, renovating the hard-working principal’s office, and awarding the top-performing students every year with prize tuition money to encourage pursuit of higher education. We learned to tailor the reconstruction plan to be accommodative and empathetic to the students’ needs as well as making tough decisions with budgeting and the pandemic.