During the past 25 years we rallied around the RC Group of 1995 umbrella, to get together and serve the College with many projects. While taking pride in those projects that we delivered, you cannot ignore the fact that some of our own brothers were in distress. Some needed companionship, others needed guidance to overcome certain difficulties that they have got into. 

Most of their issues had some financial aspect, either directly or indirectly. It may be inability to service a loan, pay children’s school fees or bear costs of urgent medication or surgeries.

Distressing part of that realisation was that a few thousand rupees may have helped many of our brothers to get out of those miseries, if such amounts were made available at the right time. The trigger could have been sudden loss of employment, unexpected crash in business or even serious medical condition of a close family member. Sad truth is that such problems may even lead to family disputes, interruption to children’s education and even drive some of our brothers towards self harm. End of the day, these were the guys who were with us at Royal for years; we had fun, fights and good times together. We cannot let them suffer in isolation now; specially when we, as a group has the needed resources to change their lot.

Back in 2015, we had good discussions on this and realised very well that these are instances where we can and should step in to help; to give hope to a brother and put a smile back on his face. While we revel and help College, we need to help our own brothers too, when in distress.

Thus in year 2015/2016, we established the “Royal College Group of 1995 Benevolent Fund”, for the welfare of members of the Group of 1995, to help our own brothers in distress, in accordance with stated objectives and applicable rules that were initially approved at that year’s AGM.

It has a separate bank account for its purposes placed under direct supervision of the Treasurer of the Group, and subjected to annual auditing. Audited accounts are placed before the members at each Annual General Meeting. To give it a head start, annual membership subscriptions for the year 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 were directly remitted to the credit of Royal College Group of 1995 Benevolent Fund account, with members approval.

Right from the start, funds for this Fund have been raised separately from other Group activities and used only for welfare activities of members. A three-member committee of trustees appointed annually manage the Fund and evaluate potential recipients to identify deserving cases.

To date, we have provided financial assistance to XX number of our brothers in the Group. Some were direct financial assistance to move over the financial distresses that they were in, offset urgent medical bills, etc… while others were indirect financial help such as payment of outstanding utility bills, lease rentals, children’s school fees, providing for urgent food costs, etc, enabling our member to look after his urgent and critical financial issues of business, enterprise or vocation with peace of mind. 

At the SGM held in August 2021, some amendments were made, by expanding the reach beyond members of the Group, enabling the committee to decide on nationally or otherwise important contexts too, in making funds available for welfare purposes. Good example is recent donations of urgently needed medical equipment and medicines to certain public hospitals in these Covid pandemic days. However, priority shall always be given to members of the Group. Only excess funds not immediately needed for urgencies of members will be considered for such purposes.

Any member by himself or on behalf of another member or any other person can make a request for any kind of assistance, anytime. Even if it is not a specific request, just give the tip that so and so might be in need of some support, so that the subcommittee can evaluate the situation.