ICCC Community Celebration (28 Aug 2020) – Subhas and Uttra Bhargava

ICCC President’s Congratulatory Message to Subhas and Uttra Bhargava:

As President and on behalf of the ICCC Board of Directors, Program Chairs, and many Volunteers, it is indeed my privilege to convey our sincere congratulations to both of  you for receiving the Governor-General of Canada award of a Meritorious Service Medal (M.S.M.), a prestigious national award. This is great news not only for you and your family, but also for your friends, and the community at large is truly proud of your accomplishments.

Although I have known you since the early 1980s, when you bought my Blackburn Hamlet house, our mutual association has grown stronger only recently in the last 3-4 years, with your active interest and participation in ICCC’s various initiatives. Your generous support for both the “ICCC Compassionate Ottawa” and “ICCC Covid-19 Relief Fund “initiatives has been truly remarkable. We at ICCC are also working  with you on several other potential community-oriented projects – all with an underlying theme to create synergy within the community to come together and celebrate “Unity in Diversity”. Our community is endowed with tremendous talent in all walks of life, and as you know, ICCC is striving hard to get everyone working together to raise the community profile to achieve its Vision:

         “A United Indo-Canadian Community Thriving in the Canadian Mainstream.”

Message from Urvashi Bhargava (Daughter of Subhas and Uttra Bhargava):

It is with great pleasure that I inform you that our Mom and Dad will both be receiving the Governor-General of Canada award of a Meritorious Service Medal (M.S.M.), a prestigious national award (please see below for the official letters). They are being awarded for their philanthropic initiatives in support of innovative research into and awareness of neurodegenerative diseases. I know they are humbled to receive an honour of this magnitude, and feel that their parents and children have been their greatest source of inspiration. They also feel they owe their gratitude to their family, relatives, and close friends for their love and support, as well as to the brilliant scientists, community and business leaders with whom they work in collaboration.

From their early lives, Mom and Dad have always been involved in volunteer work. However, it is the most agonizing chapter of their lives which became the true catalyst to giving back to their community in their adopted country, Canada.

As you know, Mom and Dad moved our family from India back to Canada in the early 80s. At that time, Dad also brought our grandparents (Amma and Pitaji), Drs. Roshan Lal and Sumitra Bhargava, who were stricken with advanced stages of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s respectively. While establishing their work and raising five children, they were also caring for their parents. Soon after, our eldest sister at the age of 23 suffered a serious motor vehicle accident, being hit head-on by a drunk driver, which rendered her quadriplegic. This devastated our entire family.

They rebounded from this by continuing to be grateful for what they still had, and by focusing on constructive actions by giving back to their community, naturally primarily in the fields of neurodegeneration and spinal cord.

Mom and Dad attribute Kiwanis International Club of Ottawa to be integral in honing their leadership skills and philanthropic work. Among their various projects (single or joint), they were instrumental in obtaining a Parliamentary Declaration of National Children’s Day (Nov 20th), leading the development and distribution of 300,000 Precious Minds videos focused on nurturing early literacy, donating to Cancer Foundation of Ottawa and Compassionate Ottawa for cancer and end of life coaching, and sponsoring golf tournaments for stroke research.

Dad is especially proud of being the Founding Chair of the Parkinson’s Research Consortium, as well as initiating an annual Brain Health Awareness Week in Ottawa with the support of the University of Ottawa’s Brain and Mind Research Institute.

The most thrilling milestone events in their journey have been to promote cure for diseases that afflict the central nervous system. They sponsored Research Chairs in 1) Neurodegeneration, and 2) Spinal Cord and Brain Regeneration at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. These initiatives are headed by world-class researchers cum medical practitioners.

They have received many community recognitions in recent years including, Philanthropist of the Year award in Ottawa.

Currently, Mom and Dad are working on a dementia prevention project, creating a fund for the application of technologies to support seniors in hospitals/nursing homes, and supporting iCreate, an organization in India that provides entrepreneurial training to vulnerable and unemployed youth.

I’d like to thank you for your time and for letting me share a few words about our parents. It is a proud moment for us all. I know you would also be happy about our parents receiving this remarkable honour, one of the highest in the country, for their exceptional hard work and dedication in their philanthropic pursuits.

Kind Regards,

Urvashi