New Delhi, Aug 29 (PTI) PETA India distributed nutritious vegan meals among 3,000 children and needy people in Delhi in memory of its founder Ingrid Newkirk’s late mother Mary Patricia Ward, who lived in the city during the 1950s and 1960s, according to an official statement.
With support from the Little India Foundation, the organisation distributed protein-rich rajma-chawal at community education centres and at Jai Hind Camp in Vasant Kunj, the statement said.
According to the statement, Ward, who would have turned 104 this year, spent eight years in the Diplomatic Enclave in New Delhi, where her husband worked as an adviser to the Government of India.
During her years in Delhi, Ward supported organisations working for children and their mothers, served at Mother Teresa’s orphanage and undertook tasks such as sewing clothes for orphaned children and stuffing cotton into toys, it said.
She also helped people affected by leprosy, including by preparing dressings and packing medicines for those who begged in Connaught Place, according to the statement.
Ward was fond of rajma-chawal, a popular Delhi dish which is vegan when prepared without ghee, and was deeply committed to helping animals. She rescued injured dogs from the streets and brought them home, it said.
Newkirk, founder of PETA India and PETA organisations around the world, said her mother’s lesson that it did not matter who was suffering, but what one could do to help, shaped her life’s work.
“My mother taught me that compassion should reach everyone, whether it is a child, a person struggling with difficult circumstances, or an animal in need and hoping for help,” Newkirk said.
“By offering nutritious vegan food to families in Delhi, PETA India is honouring her legacy in the way she would have wanted — with kindness, nourishment and respect for all living beings,” she said.
Ward died in 2013 in Springfield, Oregon, in the United States, according to the statement.
Her philanthropic work in India has continued to be remembered through her daughter’s work, it said. PTI SGV MDO MDO
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