D Antony Vijayaraj
Meet Our Founder
Pune is where I was born and am a Tamil. I was born in 1950 and feel am 60. My energy level and health are always on top of the world thank God. My respect and love for people who live with me an those in touch with me make my life. I enroll them to my way of life and the mutual love and respect for each other gives a sense of equity. The trusting relationships make a huge difference in our lives. Obviously, I consider everyone equal and this belief gives me the confidence to communicate to all around me and draw them close to me. My belief in Equity with the right attitude helps to bring out the excellence in whatever I do. This helps to achieve most anything to contribute towards the creation of a sustainable universe. My inquisitive and friendly nature help me to gather plenty of knowledge to understand people and issues. This understanding helps to love and serve others appropriately and in a timely manner.
My personality and my stature make me approachable, friendly and unafraid. The sense of gratitude and humility brings about a chain of results to end my day saying “thank you”. Loving kindness flows through my posture, thoughts, words and deeds. The energy I give out is friendly and I am not afraid of any human beings. They are able to pick up my vibes and make my life happy. I am able to identify myself with most anybody rich or poor. I can share or dine with rich and the poor equally. Equity, respect and love for all including all living things make my life simple and easy. The trust I have in others helps me to keep me close to them and I am never worried if they cheat me. The loss is immaterial and the universe returns it back somehow.
I started my life in Pune and I moved on to Chennai, India to go through my Primary and Secondary school learning. Since aspired to become a religious I went a special boarding school and that helped me lot to form a routine and character. The discipline helps me even today to be firm in my decisions. The upbringing given by the Salesians of Don Bosco is the sole reason for my happy and successful living. I studied in Loyola College, Chennai, India, Dublin Institute of Management, Dublin, Eire, Selly Oak Colleges, Bournvile, UK and many other Institutions. However, nothing matches the learning experience in different parts of the world and living with lovely people with different cultural backgrounds. I cherish the richness in the diversity.
Early marriage kept me young as a father and husband. I also gained time to learn through the new calling. However, I stayed close to the Salesians while living my lay life and work. I worked in Ireland for 4 years working along with a famous Salesian viz, late Fr. Sean Mc Ferran. Starting a “Third World Community” and going around the country, North and South, raising awareness through visiting and speaking to children and young people in their schools and colleges helped me to learn a lot. This was a great start to my life abroad. I then moved on doing different things related to development in different parts of the world. This experience and exposure made me to move on to New Zealand and Australia. We were part of a pioneering group that started the whole move of “Community integration and freedom” to children and young people who were locked up in the Institutions until late 1980s. Today, we are happy to see this move transform the lives of people disadvantaged due to disabilities of different nature. We started living and working with these lovely people as volunteers and we see this spread like a wild fire from New Zealand to Australia. Institutionalised living has become the thing of the past.
The huge opportunities to reach out and touch the lives of thousands of children and young people in India through Education made me leave the comforts of Australia. My children did very well and are well settled in life. They are all happily married despite the challenges of varied nature and we are a truly international family. We have Michael who is of Greek origin and Rachel who is of Honk Kong Chinese origin. We are a multicultural family in the true sense of the word. Our grandchildren are growing up. The commitment to family comes first and a few health issues in the family has brought me back to Sydney, Australia.
I visited Finland 4 times to learn their best methodologies of learning and teaching. This urge to learn all about various pedagogies and best practices took me to Harvard, United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Middle East, Africa, USA and Canada. I attended conferences and lectures all over the world.
My special calling is to work with people disadvantaged using all my skills, varied experiences, wide exposure and knowledge. This made me work in a wide range of areas. I was an educator, government servant, banker and social worker.
The Seventy-three years of learning and work gives me the energy and determination to work until I fall dead. God has helped me to keep fit with good habits and routine. My Salesian upbringing has helped me to believe and practice a good routine and a positive outlook. I still play indoor and outdoor games. The games I love are table tennis, cricket, hockey, soccer, volley ball and indoor shuttle. My heart loves the walking and cycling. Keeping busy, keeping cheerful and keeping simple/humble help me to be young and keep going. The connections and friendships give me all the strength I need in life. I never burn my bridges and therefore, the friends are many. I am keen always to connect people for their gain and never connect people with an ulterior motive. A lot of my friends have grown big and tall due to these connections made.
My connections are stronger now more than ever before; and they are all coming to my aid. They are in fact, coming in person to support me with their special projects and special offering to make it all happen. Scientists, world renowned artist and willing friends are ready to make the contribution for the New Venture.