Dennis Taraporewala
My idea of a better world is people realising that it’s not ‘his way’ or ‘my way’, it’s ‘our way’. Human experiences, struggles and triumphs cut across cultures - whether you’re in New York or Mumbai or Singapore or Senegal - life’s challenges are going to come at you wherever you are. We have to have compassion for each other. We’re not competing, we’re collaborating. A world where more people understand this, is my ideal world. The UWC mission at its heart is about that: a great compassion and understanding that people have for the human experience."Dennis Taraporewala ’88, PR and Brand Strategist, Musician and Volunteer with PRASAD
I have always had a creative side - a side that I have nurtured from my early primary school days but which really blossomed when I was at UWCSEA. A uniquely UWCSEA experience I had was jamming with the then Head of College - he was playing the saxaphone, I was playing the guitar. Such an opportunity wouldn’t have happened back home! UWCSEA gave me the space to perform and hone my creative skills within a multicultural environment.
Now, in the advertising field, I continually express this creative side, in harmony with my strong management side. Advertising needs a certain rigour and it also needs a certain type of creativity. I love combining them - I know for some they could be contradictions but in me it was natural.
About 11 years ago, I started Criesse Communications, a public relations and brand strategy company. I had an eye-opening experience at UWCSEA that informs the work I do now and it took place in a Theory of Knowledge (ToK) session. The Head of Senior School at the time was Mr. Andrew Bennett. He had taken an example of an incident that had happened somewhere in the world, and showed us how two newspapers had reported the same incident very, very differently.
This lesson on perspective is at the heart of what I do. We analyse the juxtaposition of differing viewpoints all the time. To be exposed to that early through my ToK lessons really was a great awakening in my mind.
UWCSEA also gave me the opportunity to work and bond with a diverse group of people. This played a big role in setting a template for me in running a company. At UWCSEA, we were cooperating with one another and we were cared for within the larger context of the UWCSEA ideals.
These ideals in turn helped to open my eyes to difficult realities that we get desensitised to a little - for instance, in seeing poverty everywhere in India, sometimes we just block it out. But through UWCSEA, we worked with Vietnamese refugees who were living in Singapore and visited the Singapore School for the Blind. These experiences showed me the larger world that we can contribute to, as individuals in a privileged position to give back.
I founded the PRASAD Project, which runs a programme about 100km from Mumbai in the Tansa Valley to support the community there with education, health and microfinance projects. It aims to help them achieve long term financial empowerment and a sustainable life. My involvement in that came out of being sensitised and discovering my own country and looking for a way in which I could give directly back. It is very in line with the UWCSEA mission, and was a very fulfilling experience.
My idea of a better world is people realising that it’s not ‘his way’ or ‘my way’, it’s ‘our way’. Human experiences, struggles and triumphs cut across cultures - whether you’re in New York or Mumbai or Singapore or Senegal - life’s challenges are going to come at you wherever you are. We have to have compassion for each other. We’re not competing, we’re collaborating. A world where more people understand this, is my ideal world. The UWC mission at its heart is about that: a great compassion and understanding that people have for the human experience.
In the IB Diploma, Dennis studied Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Hindi, English, Science, Technology and Social Change.