When Dato’ Sri Vijay Eswaran, Executive Chairman of the QI Group, officially launched Vijayaratnam Foundation (VF) in April 2006, it was a moment that marked greater significance in his life than the success he had achieved through building a multimillion dollar company.
For him, the birth of the Foundation was a moment of overwhelming joy; it was an opportunity to live his lifelong dream of continuing the philanthropic activities started by his father, Mr Vijayaratnam Saravanamuthu, in Malaysia, 60 years ago.
VF is the Malaysian Chapter of the RYTHM Foundation (RF), which is the philanthropic arm of the QI Group of Companies. In other words, VF was established to carry the noble mission of RF into Malaysia.
As part of the QI family, we share the same corporate philosophy as RF, which is RYTHM – Raise Yourself to Help Mankind. RYTHM is ultimately about recreating the message of Mahatma Gandhi, who believed that in order to help mankind, one needs to first help oneself, by raising oneself.
While we maintain close ties with RF, we are a separate, legal organisation, with our own endowment, and we operate as an independent body to carry out our mission: Empowering Lives, Transforming Communities.
We believe in creating positive social changes in the lives of the most vulnerable members of society and work on acting as a change agent by improving systems, inventing and disseminating new approaches; and advancing sustainable solutions that create social values.
Our responsibilities involve facilitating the inception and implementation of various initiatives and projects through work with the public and private sectors, civil society, and the philanthropic community.
While reaching out to the grassroots, such as individual families and disadvantaged members of society who are the main beneficiaries of our charitable activities, we have also built ties and channelled our support to various charities and spiritual centres in the country through our humanitarian projects.