OBITUARY – Dr. George Joseph
SURREY – The founder of Pratham BC Foundation Dr. George Joseph passed away in a hospital in Kerala Thursday morning. He was in the hospital for 3 to 4 weeks, and had complications with fluid in his lungs and had a heart failure. This message was relayed via Dr. and Mrs. Menon to Dr. Suseela Reddy here in Vancouver. Dr. Joseph is survived by his wife, Rani Joseph, and their only daughter.
Dr. Joseph served as Consul General of India here in Vancouver between 2004 to 2005. He retired from the Indian Government foreign service on October 31st 2010 , and settled back home in Kerala. He was truly a gentleman, and a very good friend. His vision is what gave birth to Pratham BC Foundation here in Vancouver.
He helped with the first draft for Pratham BC. – his gift of communication was excellent. He did a lot of good things in his tenure here as the Consul General of India. Dr. Joseph was noted more for bringing the CGI Vancouver office closer to the entire Indian Community back in 2004 – 2005. He was the first one to call the leaders of our Indian Community to collectively plan Indian Independence Day celebrations together.
His idea was to showcase and have other communities in the Vancouver Lower Mainland partake in our Independence celebrations. For this reason, for the first time in Vancouver, the traditional flag hosting was done on the grounds of the Scott Road Gurudwara in Surrey on August 15th 2004.