Mark Weightman

"I just felt so strongly about the work of Karma Nirvana, that I just had to get involved, somehow and in some way, however large or small". Mark came into contact with Jasvinder Sanghera and the Karma Nirvana project after attending a public lecture at the University of Derby in April 2009. Mark explains, "I had read 'Shame'  two years before I saw the advertisement in my local library which said that Jasvinder was going to be speaking. All of a sudden I felt again the immense pain and severe anguish I had experienced when I had first read the book. It was quite simple really; I just had to attend and meet 'this' women (Sanghera) who had been through so much and been through so much right on my own doorstep in the city of Derby. I was on a mission!" I turned up at the lecture theatre already having mentally prepared numerous questions! Fortunately, I got the chance to speak and I became more and more intrigued and for the want of a better phrase, 'fired up' by the sheer injustice of what Jasvinder was speaking about. I approached her after the talk and was asked if I wanted to use my enthusiasm to productive use. Mark says, "if the truth be known, I just felt like I was doing something where I knew that I 'could and would' make a difference. And I have never looked back!"

Friends and acquaintances often ask me, "what does a 6ft 5" Caucasian bloke get from being involved in a charity which predominantly deals with female Asian victims? They say that it is not in 'my' culture and that I can never fully understand what I am dealing with. They say it is none of my business! I respond to this every time by saying that, injustice and brutality are not something which is race, gender or age specific and neither is doing something about it. I truly feel that whoever you are and whatever you do the basic human instinct to assist and care for those in a less fortunate position than yourself always radiates through at all costs. When you really think about it, your race or cultural heritage is pretty much irrelevant. It is about doing something which is fundamentally right".