Naraine and the children of Padma House, left and centre.
Naraine (BA ’89) is CEO of Symcor, a $700-million company based in Toronto that provides financial processing services to major banks and retailers. She started the Naraine Global Fund in 2008. The foundation provides funding and oversight to grassroots organizations in India and Honduras to improve the lives of women and children through the delivery of educational, skills training, literacy and health programs. In Honduras, funds from Naraine’s charity helped build an orphanage for children living in extreme poverty called Padma House, named after Naraine’s mother. Padma House, which has room for 12 children and two caregivers, also provides access to education, medical care, clothing, and a safe and loving environment. The foundation also funds the Reyes Irene Valenzuela School, where one day a week 400 young women attend to earn their high school diplomas. “These women work around the clock in the homes of the wealthy, and are often treated poorly,” she says. “They work nonstop but by law they are allowed one day off.” The women also have access to health care, including medical consultations and annual workshops on physical health, personal hygiene and nutrition, and reproductive health. “It’s not popular to teach about contraceptives in Honduras, but it works,” says Naraine. In India, the Naraine Global Fund partners with World Literacy of Canada to focus on literacy, skills training and microfinance programs — providing small loans to women interested in starting their own businesses — with classes, scholarships and a mobile library bus that travels to various communities to help residents learn how to read. On one of her first visits to India, one of Naraine’s most affecting experiences was seeing women who could not measure cloth because they were illiterate. Thanks to the organizations she supports, the women can now measure a piece of cloth, make a business out of selling shirts, and use the income to support their families. “We prefer to keep the women in the villages and make the village better,” says Naraine. “I don’t want to just give you an apple. The root to poverty elimination is basic education, and then getting a job and doing something. That’s the simplicity of what you can do for
16 LAURIER CAMPUS Summer 2013
someone if you can teach them how to read, write and do numbers.” Global community development models show that women and children are the most underserved of the population and the ones who improve the fastest with investment in skills, which lifts the entire community, says Naraine. “My philosophy is that humans, as a species, could not be millions of years old if we couldn’t create positive change. My role is to not only participate in that change, but help create and lead it.”
N
araine, who is of Indian descent, was born in Guyana, South America. In 1976, at the age of 16, she quietly left the country with her family, including three younger brothers and an older sister. Due to the political situation at the time, it was difficult for people to leave Guyana. “We left school one day and never came back. We walked away from everything, and basically started over.” The family settled in Kitchener-Waterloo, where Naraine’s aunt was living. It was April, and they arrived during a terrible snowstorm. Naraine and her family relied on each other to acclimatize not only to the weather, but also to a new culture. The family of seven moved into a three-bedroom house. To make ends meet, her father, an engineer in Guyana, took a job repairing combines, while her mother babysat children in the family home. To help support her family, Naraine took a summer job at global technology company NCR, and she continued to work there part-time throughout her final year of high school. Instead of going to university for engineering, as was expected by her parents, she continued to work at NCR because she enjoyed it. “Luckily my parents were quite liberal,” says Naraine. “For an Indian guy, my father was very progressive and encouraged the development of women.”