ONCE A practising pandit, Suresh Sugrim, after much soul-searching, decided that there were many pandits preaching the scriptures from the Hindu texts, but the practical application of the philosophies that makes Hinduism such a great religion, whereby God was served through service to Man, were being circumvented by too much dogma and too many rituals, without enough consideration given to existential dynamics in the family of Mankind. So he shed his dhoti and kurta, donned jeans and ‘tees’, and embarked on a divine journey that has catapulted into a movement that has achieved a momentum all its own in prayerful service to Man. Through the organization he established in New Jersey in the USA (The New Jersey Arya Samaj Mandir), having migrated to that country since he was a very young man, Pt. Sugrim has realized his passion to serve, reach out, and make a difference to those needing love, compassion, kindness, and help to better their lives in one way or another.
With no resources to support his grand dreams of helping to empower the underprivileged in society, especially in his home-country of Guyana, Pt. Suresh took a begging bowl to various avenues where Guyanese, primarily, were gathering for events, often returning home practically in tears because “it is very hard to beg.”
However, he persevered, because he says that he felt “…blessed to be doing something practical toward alleviating, in some measure, the suffering of the poor and powerless.”
The rewards, according to him, are the smiles on the faces of those who the organization that he founded has helped over the years — with victims spanning age, gender, race, religion, and from all and every walk of life — all of whose lives have been touched in some meaningful way, and whose dignity has been restored by the efforts of himself and the network of donors and volunteers he has established, both in the USA and Guyana.
Returning to Guyana as many times per year as the resources gathered for distribution would allow, Pt. Sugrim’s indefatigable efforts have driven the successes of NJASM’s people-empowerment initiatives, all of which have been well-documented and reported on, primarily in the media. 
Today, the organization has a fully registered chapter in Guyana, under the Friendly Society Act. The NJASM/Guyana Central Humanitarian Mission has a Berbice branch, manned fully by volunteers, with a Board of Advisors and an executive body, and a youth arm.
The latter has as members many youths from privileged backgrounds who have never seen the real face of poverty before they embarked on this amazing journey that is leading them toward self-discovery, as well as discovery of the essence of humanity that exists within every person.
Thus the Mission is multi-purpose and multi-dimensional.  Adjunctive to its primary social activities, it has established a strong sense of volunteerism and civic responsibility in its members, as well as steered many young persons to make right choices in the building of direction of their purpose in life through the inculcation of good and worthwhile values.

National Award
Needless to say, his efforts have not gone unrecognized and unrewarded by an appreciative government which continually encourages and supports private/public partnerships for developmental initiatives in Guyana.
For his outstanding contributions towards supporting and enhancing Guyana’s socio-economic empowerment programmes for the benefit of the helpless and vulnerable here, Pandit Sugrim was recently awarded the Golden Arrow of Achievement.
He received the national honour at the Guyana Mission in New York during the observation of Guyana’s 45th Independence Anniversary there.
He, however, feels that the award is not rightly his, as it belongs to the donors and volunteers who have contributed to the force the organization has now become.
Future projects, he says, include the establishment of a multi-purpose facility to house transitory homes for abused persons; an orphanage; a home for the elderly; and an educational/empowerment centre, through which it will continue its activities in partnership with government, Food For the Poor and other NGO’s.
He says that he is a firm believer in the “give a man a net to make a living, rather than a fish for a meal” philosophy; and that education is the true means to empowerment, hence the establishment of the education and empowerment centre.
In conclusion, Pandit Sugrim reiterated that persons cannot live with dignity on handouts, so his organization focuses mainly on empowerment initiatives rather than the granting of charity, because the mission of the organization is to restore dignity to the lives of the unloved and abandoned persons in society.