About Us
The Beginning
The Harmony Foundation was founded in October 2005 by Dr. Abraham Mathai to establish social cohesion between various communities, castes and work towards the benefit of all the communities without any discrimination as to religion, caste, creed, gender or region. The raison d’etre of this foundation was necessitated by the fact that we are presently living in a very turbulent period in the history of mankind wherein many wicked acts are being perpetrated under the guise of political, economic, religious reasons which have long-term implications on the peaceful co-existence of human society.
​
The society today needs peace, tolerance, equality and social justice to function cohesively and to encourage inclusiveness. Considering this situation and to make this ideal into a concrete and tangible reality the Harmony Foundation in association with prominent individuals such as Mahesh Bhatt, Adv Mihir Desai, Tushar Gandhi hosts the Harmony International Conference and Mother Teresa Memorial International Awards for Social Justice to felicitate selfless and intrepid individuals who have channelled all of their energies and creativities towards furthering the aims of social justice as to encourage the society to imbibe these virtues of peace which are an integral part of Constitution of India.
Dr. Abraham Mathai
Founder
Dr. Abraham Mathai, is an acclaimed social reformer, a philanthropist and founder of The Harmony Foundation. He has been pivotal in bringing public attention to issues related to social injustice in the past and has presided as Vice Chairman of Maharashtra State Minorities Commission. His zest to recognize and encourage social reformers and organizations across the world has led him to establish the prestigious Mother Teresa Memorial Awards.
​
With three consecutive terms in the Minorities Commission, he ensured that every common man gets a fair platform, support, recourse, and resolution to their problems. He has actively channeled his resources to fight for achieving communal harmony, peace and ethical treatment of the minorities. For his exceptional services towards the minorities and the society, Dr. Mathai has been awarded multiple national and international awards like SEAL Charity Awards for Human Rights and The Indian Catholic Press Association Awards, to name a few.
Voice of Harmony
Harmony Foundation is an NGO that works in the realm of Social Justice. Harmony foundation was established by Dr. Abraham Mathai in the year 2005 with its raison d’être being the establishment and strengthening of social cohesion among various communities and to work towards the benefit of all without any discrimination- whether it be religion, creed, sex or caste. The voice of Harmony was also brought in with the aim to give a platform to the people working in various areas and focus points of an issue and highlight their work along with the issues they battle with.
Voice of Harmony was conceived as an idea for a magazine for the development and social sector. We believe that it will not only give visibility to the organisations, individuals and their work, but also forge a strong community of people who are bent on driving social change by bringing like-minded people together. India does not currently have a magazine that cuts across the entire social sector and does not primarily focus on the CSRs.
Along the lines of how Harmony foundation operates, we pick up a theme for each year and explore it in its essence. However, the main aim for Harmony foundation has always been to recognize the work of the people and organisations working on the field and ensure a discourse and discussion among those with on-field and academic knowledge through conferences. The Mother Teresa Memorial Awards are hosted every year to felicitate the warriors of social change. The theme for this edition is the COVID-19 and we will be discussing the overarching impact it has
had on our country and the individuals with the people who have hands on experiences on field or in academia.
Theme 2020
A lot has happened this year, with the pandemic causing drastic changes in the world, changes no one anticipated. While we lost countless lives across the globe, a number of brave individuals and organizations rose to fight a selfless battle against the virus and help humanity.
Harmony Foundation through the Mother Teresa Memorial Awards 2020 is felicitating acts of compassion by the heroes who rose up in these times of Covid.
