JAMAICA – By his own admission, Gull Mansukhani came to Jamaica from India with nothing 41 years ago. Now he is a successful businessman with a burning desire to help the people of the country which has done so much for him. “Jamaica has given me everything, so I think it is my time to give back to Jamaica. I have created a foundation in the names of my mother Veena, and my son Vijay — the Veena/Vijay [V] Mansukhani Foundation — because I realised that I don’t want to do small projects, I want to do big projects,” Mansukhani told the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday. “I am a guy who came to Jamaica 41 years ago and I used to work with a company, and little by little I have gone on my own. I have grown to become a businessman,” added Mansukhani.

His philanthropic work officially started in March 2022 when he partnered with the Indian High Commission in Jamaica and Member of Parliament for St Andrew East Rural Juliet Holness to organise a health fair in Papine, St Andrew.

More than 360 people were seen at the health fair and Mansukhani was overjoyed to see the difference it made in the lives of those most in need. Later that year Mansukhani handed out $2 million in scholarships to a medical student and a nursing student who were struggling to pay their school fees.

That followed the death of his son in April 2022 from complications related to asthma. As an asthmatic himself, Mansukhani organised a donation of 450 nebulisers to public hospitals and other facilities islandwide.

“A lot of machines were there but were not working in hospitals, but I didn’t know. I just did this because my son died. I didn’t know that Jamaica needed this. I just said, ‘Let me give some nebulisers’, only to find out that there was a big shortage of nebulisers in hospitals,” said Mansukhani. His next major project was to come in 2023 through a chance encounter with a newspaper article with the picture of child using a bottle of ice to cool himself at Farm Primary and Infant School in St James. (Jamaicaobserver)

Photo: MANSUKHANI… Jamaica has given me everything, so I think it is my time to give back to Jamaica. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)