About The Loomba Foundation

The Loomba Foundation is a UN-recognised NGO, established in 1997 and registered in both the UK and India, dedicated to supporting disadvantaged widows and their families and ending the discrimination widows face worldwide.

Our mission is rooted in a personal story. In 1954, in the town of Dhilwan in northern India, Pushpa Wati Loomba was widowed at 37 and immediately subjected to traditional customs that stripped her of dignity and hope. Her ten-year-old son, Raj, witnessed the abrupt transformation of his mother’s life and the deep injustices widows routinely endured. Years later, at his own wedding, Raj was confronted again with the prejudice directed at widows when his mother was asked to step away from the altar.

When Pushpa Wati passed away in 1992, Raj resolved to honour her legacy by challenging the stigma that blights the lives of millions. Together with his wife, Veena, he founded the Shrimati Pushpa Wati Loomba Trust – now The Loomba Foundation – to support widows and their children and to change the culture that discriminates against them.

From the outset, the Foundation has combined practical empowerment programmes with advocacy at the highest levels, engaging governments, industry and civil society. The charity was launched in London in 1998 in the presence of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Cherie Blair, and inaugurated in India the following year by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Today, The Loomba Foundation continues its global work to ensure that every widow can live with dignity, opportunity and justice.