Damiete Braide
Members of India’s Geetha Ashram Temple have said they will not relent in their commitment to lift the social wellbeing of Nigerians.
The pledge was made by Arjan Mirchandani in a chat with Daily Sun. The Indian group has executed several humanitarian projects including construction of boreholes, award of scholarships to deserving Nigerian students and free eye surgery since it the Geetha Ashram Worship Centre was established in Apapa, Lagos in 1991. Mirchandani who is also the Chairman, Sona Group of Companies, said the group had to partnership with Rotary Club of Lagos Island to enable majority of the population in Lagos state to benefit from its programmes.
Also, the group entered an agreement with the Evangelical Church Winning All Eye Hospital in Kano to involve Nigeria doctors in its free eye surgery project when the services of Indian-based doctors became too expensive. The partnership with the church inspired the group to extend the free eye surgery project to Kano state.
“The doctor suggested that since we are doing eye operations in Lagos, we should also give Kano residents the opportunity to benefit from the project. That was how started in Kano. It is about 20 years we have been carrying out free eye surgeries in Nigeria,” Mirchandani said.
The first eye surgery was carried out in 1999 by a team of Indian doctors who were brought to Nigeria. They performed 350 surgeries. Every year, we bring Indian doctors to Nigeria to perform these operations
He said the Geetha Ashram Worship Centre was established in Apapa because that was where the members assemble every Sunday to worship. “When our spiritual leader visited Nigeria in 1992, he advised us to have our own building. He said since we live in Nigeria, we should embark on projects for the benefit of the community,” Mirchandani explained. He said the Geetha Ashram Temple was built from donations by the Indian community.
According to him, the worship centre has an eye clinic where patients with eye problems are registered and treated. The treatment covers both those who need operation and those who need minor treatment. The Centre was also giving free eye glasses to people but it was stopped after it was observed that beneficiaries were not using them properly.
Explaining further, he said the eye glasses came from India and most of them were not collected by the people who needed them. “Sometimes, people who collected the eye glasses would come back after two weeks saying they have lost them. We stopped giving eye glasses and concentrated on providing eye surgeries for people who needed it most.”
