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Kristina Keneally to visit India, support Australian charity and aid efforts
Former Premier of New South Walles,The Member for Heffron Sydney, The Hon Kristina Keneally MP, announced today that she would visit India in November to support the work of Australian charitable organisations that provide significant aid to women and girls in that country.
Ms Keneally will use her Overseas Study Tour, provided by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, to fund the trip.
One of the organisations Ms Keneally will visit is associated with the Steve Waugh Foundation, which raises money in India and outside Australia to support a girls' wing at the Udayan Centre in Calcutta. Udayan is a Centre and School for children affected by leprosy, or whose parents have the disease.
The other organisation Ms Keneally will visit is Opportunity International Australia. A provider of microfinance – or basic banking services including very small loans – to the poor, Opportunity recently appointed Ms Keneally as an Ambassador and will travel with her to India.
In Delhi and Mumbai, Ms Keneally will speak with women who are moving out of extreme poverty and starting their own businesses as a result of the microfinance services provided by Opportunity.
"This trip is a great chance to raise the profile of the very important work Australian organisations are doing to transform the lives of women and girls, who still make up a disproportionate share of the world's very poor," Ms Keneally said.
"I first became aware of the amazing work Opportunity undertakes when my husband Ben became involved. It's an organisation we are both proud to lend our time and efforts to support."
Ms Keneally said the Study Tour would also be a chance to consider the implications of the final report of the Commonwealth Government's Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness, released by the Minister for Foreign Affairs on 6 July 2011.
"Whilst the Review does not directly impact on these two organisations, it may present implications for these and other Australian charities that operate in India in the longer term," Ms Keneally said.
Whilst the trip is in its planning stages, Ms Keneally and Opportunity International also intend to have meetings with Government agencies and officials in relation to the Micro Finance Institutions (Development and Regulation) Bill 2011, currently before the Parliament of India.
Mr.Harish Velji & Hon Kristina Keneally MP
Iftikhar Rana, Former Premier NSW Hon Kristina Keneally & Syed Zafar Hussain
