Philanthropist, educationist, arts and sports patron – Nita Ambani channels her power and position to bring positive change.
By Nichola Marie
“Life is not all about making money or making wealth. Life is actually about making memories because that is all that you will leave behind.” This was Nita Ambani’s response to what money meant to her, in an interview. Making the world ‘a better and a happier place’, continues to be the objective that underlines her work as an educationist, philanthropist, patron of arts and sports, and champion of women and children’s rights.
A Helping Hand
As founding Chairperson of the Reliance Foundation – the philanthropic arm of Reliance Industries, Ambani leads the organisation’s initiatives that support a wide range of causes including rural transformation, education, child welfare, female empowerment and disaster management. To name one significant example, during the pandemic, the Foundation provided millions of free meals to lower-income communities across India and built the country’s first-ever Covid-19 Health Centre in the Seven Hills Hospital in Mumbai.
Women empowerment is a cause especially close to her heart. As she explained in an interview with ‘CNBC’, “I think a nation’s development depends on women empowerment, and the well-being of its children and transformation through sports. I think these three are key to a developed nation. With the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, we are offering employment to 1 million women to ensure that they get an income of ₹1 lakh or more.”
Nurturing The Future
Whether the setting up of institutions such as the Dhirubhai Ambani International School; the Reliance Foundation hospital to make affordable world-class medical care available to all; the NMACC to showcase the performing arts and India’s cultural heritage, or the Football Sports Development Limited to promote sporting talent, she believes the “legacy should be of creating institutions where we nurture our youths and we joyously impart knowledge, and we celebrate diversity and our roots; and to leave the world as a better and a happier place.”
