@rajeevfernando1 @CHIRAJCHARITY @ArtHeartsFashion
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February 2025 – New York City:
New York Fashion Week continues to provide a huge tent for many to be a part of and contribute to its diversity of encouraging many to use their professional careers to cross over into fashion – with a message and cause.
Dr. Rajeev Fernando uses fashion to create awareness with the goal of actual change. He designs slick leather outfits with special messages of hope infused on the front and back of each.
NYC VIBE was invited by Dr. Fernando, a globally renowned humanitarian physician to meet up at his runway show. Dr Fernando completed his Disaster Medicine at Harvard Medical School /BIDMC and did his Infectious Diseases fellowship at Dartmouth. In addition to volunteering with Doctors Without Borders in Darfur, the New York native has led numerous international missions for Tsunami relief, the wars in Ukraine and Iraq and disasters in the United States – the floods in North Carolina and the fires in California.
His passion in fashion began with a five month stint as a sales representative at the Ralph Lauren shop within the Macy’s store in Palo Alto, California. As he volunteered to provide medical assistance in disasters in more than 60 countries, he developed a vision on how to humanize fashion. Dr Fernando designed leather jackets with special messages sewn in with all proceeds from the sales going to helping victims from these conflicts and weather related damages.
Early in his medical training, Dr Fernando was bothered by realizing the vulnerabilities that women and children faced.
He studied profiles of victims of human trafficking, the prevalence of human trafficking, and on related phenomena such as forced labor and forced marriage.
A Walk Free Foundation 2022 report estimates that 50 million people were victims of modern slavery in any given day in 2021. Out of these, an estimated 27.6 million people were in situations of forced labor and another 22 million people were in a forced marriage.
Dr. Fernando designed a special pink jacket with all proceeds going towards helping these unfortunate girls slowly return back into society. Part of the funds will go towards extraction and software that help locate the sexual predators and prevent these attacks.
A humanitarian and disaster medical specialist, 100% of profits from his “Humanitarian Leather Jackets” support emergency medical aid in conflict zones. Proceeds from the pink jackets help fight child trafficking.