Through a generous pledge of $25,000, Kumaran Nadesan (BA 2004, HBA 2010 UTSC) established The Anusuya Selvarajah-Nadesan Award in International Development Studies at U of T Scarborough.
This award supports undergraduate students enrolled in the Specialist or Major Program in International Development Studies (Co-operative and Regular) with demonstrated financial need.
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What inspired you to make this gift?
My late mother, Mrs. Anusuya Nadesan-Selvarajah, had a profound impact on our family. She was, in many ways, progressive for her times and always encouraged us to be curious about the bigger world outside of our home. Her keen interest in current affairs, literature, and spirituality have inspired my own curiosity about these matters for which I’m forever grateful to her. This gift has given the Selvayogam Foundation and me the opportunity to preserve her memory at the institution that I had the privilege to attend.
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Can you share a personal story or experience that motivated your support for this particular theme?
International development has been a constant in my life for over 20 years. While not being an academic expert or a professional in this domain, I would like to think I’ve had a practitioner’s perspective in this space since my undergraduate days at UTSC. The University was the venue for launching The Student Volunteer Program (TSVP) which I co-founded in the early 2000s. Through TSVP, I lived for three months in the middle of a war zone in Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka (during a short-lived ceasefire) where the volunteer work I did, the people I had the privilege to work with, and the ideas that entered my thought process has had a transformative impact on my life and in my understanding of my own identity and purpose. I continue to stay engaged in this work now in my role as Founding Chair of comdu.it that is at the cross-section of diaspora engagement and international development that can help drive effective, more inclusive and culturally-appropriate, and sustainable interventions when especially working with war-impacted communities.
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What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done, and did it change your perspective on giving?
In 2014, during a particularly challenging period in my life, I had the privilege to backpack through nearly 20 countries stretching from parts of Africa, through the Middle East, and in Asia. Having been a third culture kid for large parts of my life, travel has been a relative constant which is consistent with the diasporic experience of many Canadian Tamils. However, this particular year of travel really gave me a deeper appreciation of the people-to-people ties that bind all of us as a global community and the responsibility we have to leave this place better than how we first found it. I'm grateful to be at this point in my life where I can make a small difference through this gift.
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Do you have a motto or words of wisdom that you live by?
I would like to think I'm somewhat spiritual, but "The hands that serve are holier than the lips that pray."
About the Donor
With over 15 years of experience in the public service and the private sector, Kumaran is the Co-Founder and Deputy Chairman of 369 Global, a business conglomerate with interests in skills training and workforce development, media and communications, and global market facilitation.