Kolkata-Born Gautam Lewis of Freedom in the Air, a polio survivor, accounted for the Asian Leadership in Charity award for his polio eradication charitable work with Rotary International.
BBC London presenter Riz Lateef and Asian of the Year 1996 Raj Loomba of the Loomba Foundation presented Gautam with the award.
At the annual Asian Who’s Who dinner at the Dorchester Hotel, Gautam Lewis, who thinks his original name might have been Gautam De, crutched to the stage to the loudest applause of the evening and collected a prestigious award for “Asian Leadership in Charity”. He accepted the award humbly on behalf of all the partner organisations in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Rotary International, WHO, UNICEF and the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for their inspiration and back-breaking work during the past 20 years in the fight against polio.
Gautam, whose charitable work now takes him to India several times a year — was interviewed by presenter Matthew Amroliwala live on BBC Television Worldwide where his inspirational story was heard by an estimated 80 million viewers.
The Asian Who’s Who International celebrated the publication of its 21st edition and was founded by Mr Jasbir Signh Sacher. It started in 1975, some 33 years ago. During the 60’s and 70’s a large influx of Asians from South Asia and Africa came to the UK. Michael Jackson’s brother, Jermaine came up to Gautam at the end of the evening to congratulate him on his award and said “what an amazing thing you are doing”.
