INSPIRATION The Art of Giving Back By Dilip V. Shah
The Art of Giving Back By Dilip V. Shah
Dilip V Shah of Philadelphia is the past president of JAINA. He is currently serving as chairman of JAINA’s Overseas Relations Committee and a member of the Academic Liaison Committee. In addition to being an advisor for Jain Digest, he is also the publisher and General Editor of Jain Avenue magazine – a publication of JAINA India Foundation. This article is third in the series “The Art of Giving Back”. We are thankful to Dilipbhai Shah for highlighting the commendable efforts of Adish and Asha Jain from southern New Jersey in reforming sixty villages around Sammet Shikharji.
Adish and Asha Jain – Modern Day Reformers This is the story of a modern-day reformer couple who sought a lasting change in the lives of twenty thousand people living in a multi-generational cycle of poverty in sixty villages around Madhuban (Shikharji).
Adish (Adishvar) and Asha Jain came from business families. Adish from New Delhi and Asha from Ghaziabad. They got married in 1966 and migrated to the US to pursue higher education. Adish earned a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering an MBA, and a doctorate. Asha was a linguist and had earned a degree in Interior Design before coming to America. They settled in rural Iowa in a mostly agricultural area where there was not much demand for linguists or interior designers. So, she obtained a degree in mechanical engineering. For fifty years, both worked for Fortune 500 companies – Asha worked for Honeywell and Adish first as a senior executive for John Deere and later at Danaher as Corporate Director of Global Product Development. In that position, he supervised 800 Indian engineers working on 200 new product developments for 30 Danaher
companies. His service was recognized for saving the company over 100 million Dollars. In 2014 both Asha and Adish retired. Their son, Samir is a CEO of a Utility consulting company in Houston and his wife Shailavi is a pharmacist. Their daughter, Sapna is a business major, and her husband is a plastic surgeon living in New Jersey just a few blocks from her parents are currently residing. The children urged Adish and Asha to spend their retirement years focusing on helping others less fortunate. The Jains knew that the root cause of all they achieved in life was education. Based on that realization, they decided to provide quality education opportunities to the children. At that time, they lived in Connecticut and visited some magnet schools in their town. Their offer of help to students economically was politely refused by the schools. Next, the Jains shifted their attention to India. They recalled joining the JAINA pilgrimage to Shikharji in 2001 and witnessing extreme poverty and lawlessness due to the Naxalite movement in the region. As Jains, they were more distraught that the sacred land where twenty of our twenty-four Tirthankaras had attained Nirvana could be in such a pitiable condition. Adish and Asha found their focal point! They just needed some local entity that they could utilize for their dream project. Adish and Asha did some research and were attracted by two NGOs operating throughout India. “Akshay Patra” - serving mid-day lunches to 2 million school children and “Ekal Vidyalaya” with more than 100,000 rural schools. They attended Ekal’s national conference in New York and were very impressed by the vast network of Ekal’s dedicated volunteers. Ekal can run each school of 30 students for just $1 per day! They decided to fund Ekal Vidyalayas in 15 villages near Delhi to learn the details of their operation firsthand. The following year on their visit to India, they visited several Ekal Vidyalayas. They were thoroughly 41
