The Ruparelias are a prominent business family in Uganda with companies in fields of hospitality, agriculture, education, media, real estate, external labour, finance, among others. Their business presence is so imposing that you can be forgiven to believe that they have their hand in every business.
Needless to say, the Ruperalias are also a tender-hearted family and business conglomerate. Through their Ruparelia Foundation, they have touched thousands of people in Uganda and beyond.
One does not need to look far to see how much the Ruparelia Group gives back to society, than this Christmas season where they have lined up several activities to give back to society. And this is done in a participatory approach.
Kampala Kids Run
On Sunday morning, the Startimes Kampala Kids Run is on their corporate social responsibility menu, attracting children from several schools to run for a good cause.
The Kids Run which starts at the Uganda Museum in Kamwokya, aims at providing “safe drinking water in primary schools”. Fresh Kid, and world famous Ghetto Kids are to entertain children turning up for the event starting as early as 7am.
Good health for children must be something close to the hearts of the family that has invested heavily in high quality education. The Ruparelia family runs among other schools Kampala Parents School, Delhi School, Kampala International School of Uganda, of course which have no issues of water and sanitation. However not all children studying in other schools are that lucky as many children don’t have safe water facilities at their schools, leave alone enough toilets for pupils and teachers.
Mr Sudhir Ruparelia who founded a charity, Ruparelia Foundation through which charity causes are undertaken, has children and their education close to his heart. He says he wants to see the gap between children of haves and have nots, bridged especially in matters of public health.
Ruparelia Group managing director Rajiv, and his wife Naiya Khagram, have been doing a number of activities especially in sports and entertainment to demonstrate that inclusive education is a possibility.
This year, they enrolled child star Patrick Ssenyonjo aka Fresh Kid into the prestigious Kampala Parents Schools and have supported him to ensure his music talent doesn’t die off. Senyonjo KPS is one of the children benefiting from Ruparelia foundation and has turned out useful in highlighting social causes such as street children. KPS has teamed up with the Ministry of Gender to lure children off streets and Fresh Kid is one of the ambassadors as well as the prefects heads at the school. Street children are increasingly become a menace and Kampala Parents is at the forefront of ensuring these children get a fair chance at education by improving facilities at schools nearest to their homes in Kampala’s suburbs and ghettos.
Kampala Kids Run, sponsored by Startimes, The Food Hub, Riham, and UMC hospitals, is one of these activities through which the Ruparelia Foundation share their resources, expertise and facilities to the benefit of other children. These activities have raised money to invest in public health in less priviledged schools.
JUST THIS FRIDAY, sh25 million from the Royal Ascot Goat Race at Speke Resort has been spent on building a toilet facility at Good Samaritan Primary school in Kamwokya slums.
Ruparelia Foundation are also sponsoring the children Christmas party next week, to give children a special feel of the festive season. Certainly, no one celebrates better than the Ruparelia Group. And that is the reason the Goat Races are a calendar year party.
Thus, Ruparelias are working towards children celebrating life, and Christmas 2019 in particular has to be special for children gracing the Children Christmas party.
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