U.S.-based Guyanese Diane Bacchus-Quddus believes “we’re placed here to help others –. To me, that is the purpose of life.” And she is living out that philosophy the best way she knows how — by giving.
The vice president of the CPW Pharmacy on Liberty Avenue in Queens, New York is intricately involved in assisting the community through the distribution of vitamins every week to children, adults and pregnant women. This has been a tradition of the pharmacy since 1995. “The fact is that we never really believe in direct advertisement; we rather give that money or support the community (which) is supporting us, and we realize a lot of patients don’t take vitamins, or their insurance doesn’t cover their vitamins…So, we took it upon ourselves to educate the community on taking their vitamins, especially children and pregnant moms, who really need it,” Bacchus-Quddus said.
The pharmacy also feeds some 300 persons within the community every Saturday. Bacchus-Quddus said she and her husband are working towards setting up a 24-hour soup kitchen to feed the hungry.
In the meantime, through Touching Souls International organization, the CPW vice president and her husband, who is from Bangladesh, offer humanitarian services to the Bangladeshi population. She told Guyana Times International the reason she chose to pursue that path as against offering support to Guyana: “I had the opportunity to go to Bangladesh in 2003. The amount of poverty there that you see, it is so much more it is overwhelming. Guyana has less than one million people, and I know a lot of my friends (who) are already helping out there; and Bangladesh has about 180 million people, 95 per cent of them (live) in poverty. When you see that, your heart can only break.” However, she says she still donates to those organizations that assist Guyanese at home.
As a member of the Anthony Robbins Foundation, Bacchus-Quddus was motivated to write a book, which she completed. It is titled ‘Your Date With Destiny’. “Basically, it is how I live my life; you prepare for it, you surrender to life, and you just let — understanding that there’s a force that’s guiding all of us, that we are all one,” she noted. She said that the book is likely to be published before the end of 2011.
She added that her motivation to help others stems from the fulfillment it brings her to just give back to people. Bacchus-Quddus left Guyana in 1989.
