Sukhi Turner to help her ancestral Indian village

Media release – October 14, 2005

Sukhi Turner to help her poor ancestral Indian village

Former Dunedin mayor Sukhi Turner flies out to India today to help her poor ancestral family village of Duneke in Punjab’s Moga region.

Turner plans to help provide a sewerage system and running water for her old family village which she said was ‘medieval’.

Turner said she has been contacting extended family members around the world to help pay for health projects in the village.

``I will also be meeting the Chief Minister of State for the Punjab in the capital, Chandigarh, to seek government support.’’

Turner was the first New Zealander to be honoured by the Indian Government with its highest award for non-resident Indian citizens or people of Indian origin.

Last year she received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award for the Indian Diaspora and is one of only 24 people to have ever received the award internationally. There are more than 22 million Indians living outside of their home country.

She is current chair of the Enviroschools Foundation Trust, is a member of the Plunket Society anniversary fund-raising committee and is on the Primary Health Organisation in Dunedin.

Turner returns from India on November 10 but flies out to Kobe on November 16. She is a member of the World Health Organisation advisory board which has its three day meeting in Japan next month.

She said today she is keen to continue her role in public life and is considering her options in the coming months.

ENDS

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