"Strive con­stant­ly to at­tain the state of non-du­al­i­ty, where your vi­sion cap­tures on­ly uni­ty amidst di­ver­si­ty, where you per­ceive no dis­tinc­tion, no dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion, no plu­ral­i­ty," are the phil­an­thropic words of ad­vice from Na­tion­al Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it re­cip­i­ent Para­macharya Pt Hard­eo Per­sad, spir­i­tu­al head of SWA­HA In­ter­na­tion­al Inc. Whether in the class­room, the con­fer­ence hall, or the sing­haasan (seat of the Hin­du priest), this pro­found call to find one­self through the path of ser­vice forms the ba­sis of Per­sad teach­ing. His ex­am­ple en­gen­ders a spir­it of em­pa­thy and com­pas­sion, where hu­man­i­tar­i­an ser­vice un­der­pins the up­lift­ment of man in all spheres of life. For al­most half a cen­tu­ry, Per­sad has been ac­tive­ly in­volved in the so­cio-civic, char­i­ta­ble, ed­u­ca­tion­al, re­li­gious and sport­ing are­nas of var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties across our beloved na­tion of T&T. The many ser­vice-ori­ent­ed pro­grammes that he has ini­ti­at­ed pro­vid­ed the spring board for con­tin­ued ad­vance­ment of the hu­man spir­it. A brief glimpse of some of the out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions he made in var­i­ous spheres bear solemn wit­ness to the fact that ser­vice to man is in­deed ser­vice to God.

In ad­di­tion to a full-time teach­ing job and the heavy re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of fam­i­ly life, this stal­wart of dhar­ma and of na­tion-build­ing kept his flag of ser­vice aloft. Be­ing in­spired by his il­lus­tri­ous fa­ther, His Ho­li­ness Shankaracharya Pt Hari Prasad (the founder of SWA­HA), Per­sad knew from a young age that he want­ed to fol­low in his foot­steps. In the six­ties and sev­en­ties, Per­sad , recog­nis­ing the need for con­tin­u­ing re­ju­ve­na­tion and sus­tain­able ef­forts for ad­vanc­ing com­mu­ni­ty-life, found­ed the Aranguez Cul­tur­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion, the Amar Jy­ot, as well as the Gyaan Deep­ak Kir­tan Man­dali. His dri­ve to fa­cil­i­tate the me­dia that pro­mote, prop­a­gate and re-es­tab­lish the time-ho­n­oured prac­tices of the Hin­du tra­di­tion, di­rect­ed him to the Vish­wa Hin­du Parishad and lat­er to the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, where he held ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions. There he co-or­di­nat­ed a se­ries of out­reach pro­grammes, train­ing work­shops, sem­i­nars and com­pi­la­tion of Re­li­gious In­struc­tion syl­labus for pri­ma­ry schools, among oth­er ini­tia­tives.

These in­no­va­tions of­fered trans­for­ma­tion­al lead­er­ship, en­gag­ing the hearts and minds of the pub­lic and, as such, gar­nered much sup­port. Be­tween 1993 and 2008, he found­ed and/or pro­vid­ed spir­i­tu­al lead­er­ship for the An­tar Jy­ot Man­dali of Cara­pichaima; the Gyaan Bhak­ti Man­dali of Cal­i­for­nia; the Gyaan Jy­oti of Madras; the Kr­ish­na Mandir of Gas­par­il­lo; the Dhar­ma Jy­ot Mandir of South Oropouche; the Sansar Jy­ot Man­dali of Av­o­cat; and the Gyaan Deep­ak Kir­tan Man­dali of Aran­juez. Af­ter re­tir­ing from his Math­e­mat­ics teach­ing post at the Mor­vant/Laven­tille Sec­ondary School, Para­macharya­ji in­ten­si­fied his ef­forts in at­tend­ing to the hu­man cause. He em­ployed nov­el strate­gies for ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing in Hin­du val­ue sys­tems, and al­so in ser­vic­ing the wel­fare needs of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. With the es­tab­lish­ment of SWA­HA, he steered many pi­o­neer­ing ef­forts and large-scale projects. He held the di­rec­tor­ship of SWA­HA So­cial Ser­vices, es­tab­lish­ing the SWA­HA Vishok Bha­van chil­dren's Home in Pe­nal. In 1997, un­der his stew­ard­ship, the first EC­CE cen­tre of SWA­HA threw open its doors at Aran­juez, wel­com­ing that com­mu­ni­ty to pre-school ed­u­ca­tion.

Just four years lat­er, SWA­HA's first sec­ondary school was es­tab­lished in the com­mu­ni­ty of San­gre Grande. Per­sad 's vi­sion and point­ed guid­ance led to these projects be­ing re­alised in record time. The So­cial Ser­vices arm of SWA­HA has evolved in­to a re­sults-ori­ent­ed en­ti­ty that man­ages the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a wide range of so­cial pro­grammes through­out the or­gan­i­sa­tion. The com­mu­ni­ty dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­gramme, the com­mu­ni­ty out­reach pro­gramme and the health ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme are but some of the ini­tia­tives aimed at re­duc­ing the prob­lem of pover­ty. Through SWA­HA Pub­li­ca­tions, the vi­sion of the Per­sad was re­alised in pro­vid­ing ac­ces­si­ble ed­u­ca­tion­al ma­te­ri­als on Hin­duism, while at the same time lever­ag­ing new me­dia out­lets for knowl­edge dis­sem­i­na­tion. In the spheres of re­li­gion and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, Per­sad has spent more than 35 years ad­dress­ing var­i­ous spir­i­tu­al and so­cial is­sues, both lo­cal­ly and abroad. Al­ways one to fur­ther ex­tend the hand of ser­vice, Para­macharya­ji has walked the talk.