Enterprise Mentors International, founded 19 years ago by Latter-day Saints who wanted to lift people out of poverty in developing nations, observed its annual fund-raising gala in Salt Lake City Oct. 9, honoring the efforts of Padma Venkataraman to help people in her home nation of India who suffer from leprosy.

The daughter of former India President R. Venkataraman, she struggled to come to terms with the plight of people afflicted with the disease. Feeling that nothing should be given for free to people, lest they not value it, she helped develop a plan whereby sufferers in the leper colonies could receive loans to start their own businesses. This would create a micro-economy within and between the colonies and eliminate the need for begging. The organization she helped found expanded to more than 1,000 people afflicted with leprosy throughout eastern India.

Mrs. Venkataraman was given the Enterprise Mentors International Humanitarian Service Award, presented by Ron Gunnell, a member of the EMI Board of Directors.

In response, she dedicated the award to leprosy-afflicted people of the world and thanked EMI for choosing the subject of leprosy, saying it has been forgotten in many parts of the world.

Meeting at the Downtown Salt Lake Marriott Hotel, attendees were entertained by the 5 Browns, a renowned group of LDS siblings who, as Juliard-trained pianists, perform classical music together.

In preparation for the gala, the three sisters and two brothers who make up the performing group traveled with Mark L. Peterson, CEO of EMI, to South America where they visited several clients of EMI and its partner organizations, which provide micro-credit loans to people who form and grow home-based businesses to raise themselves and their families out of poverty.

In an update, Brother Peterson said it has been a ground-breaking year for the foundation, which has helped move some of its partner organizations toward "operational self-sufficiency," whereby they earn enough from interest on the loans to clients that they are able to meet operating expenses without relying on grants from the mother organization in the United States. A partner organization in Manila, Philippines, reached that status in December of last year. Organizations in Davao, Philippines; Peru and Guatemala are almost there as well, Brother Peterson said.

The foundation has laid the groundwork for expansion into dozens more countries and could help a million or more clients within the next few years, he said.

EMI was co-founded in 1990 by Menlo F. Smith, a St. Louis, Mo., businessman who was a Church mission president in the Philippines. He returned with a desire to help people in the country overcome poverty.

From 1997 to 2007, the foundation was led by G. Richard Oscarson of St. Louis.

rscott@desnews.com