Ghandi Nivas

Ranjna Patel has developed a successful healthcare business, built a Hindu temple and created a ground-breaking domestic violence programme for Kiwis.

In 2014 Patel established the Nirvana Foundation, the charitable arm of Nirvana Health Group, which has since gone on to create the Gandhi Nivas programme, which focuses on ending domestic violence, delivered by Sahaayta Counselling Services in conjunction with the police.

Four out of 14 women killed in New Zealand are Indian, and 55 per cent of breaches of domestic violence orders are by Indian men. Patel decided to turn an empty medical clinic in Otahuhu into early-intervention accommodation for perpetrators of domestic violence. The initiative has received a lot of praise for the work it does in educating families and perpetrators.