As one of the leading organizations in this region, HRMA has persistently grown in the last few years with an uncompromising agenda catered toward developing social life. HRMA serves to cultivate and support the exchange of ideas between Malayalees and people of other cultures. HRMA also works closely with other Indian culture associations in the Hampton Roads area.
Hampton Roads is comprised of five major cities in southeastern Virginia. Major cities include Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Newport News, and Hampton. Hampton Roads was formerly known as Tidewater.
The Hampton Roads Malayalee Association (HRMA) is an organization founded on the extraordinary commitment of many members, a few of whom have served and strengthened our community for up to four decades. As per some of our members, the earliest known record of an organized event by the Malayalee community of Hampton Roads occurred in 1973 with just three families including Sunny and Amy, Ramesh and Sreeja Kadackal, Joy and Elizabeth Kannarkattu. Thereafter more people started to migrate to this area. There were social gatherings, graduation parties, picnics, and other cultural and social activities. Also, in 1998, Malayalees held their first event ‘Thiruvathira’ at ODU. In early 2000’s Mahesh Gopinath, Renjith Kumar, Anil Nair, Brahma Koodallur, Suresh Kondoor, Joby Varghese and Xavier Konathapally took initiative to convert the usual gatherings into an organized way naming the organization, HRMA.
HRMA officially registered in 2016 as a non-profit organization in the state of Virginia with a focus for promoting the cultural and social activities primarily among the Asian-Indians living in the Virginia/Hampton Roads Area. Along with officially registering HRMA, the first official committee was formed under the leadership of Xavier (Sibychen) Konathapally. With Sibychen as President, the following committee members formed the first committee – Jikku Abraham, Joby Varghese, Nisaraj Dharmarajan, Iype Philip (Shibu), Ceril Chummar, Snitha Krishnan and Rejith Raveendran. At present, the organization has over 75 families with numbers growing every year. One of the major contributions of the Association has been to create awareness in those who are unfamiliar with the richness of language, literature, art, music, dance and culture of Kerala, a southern state of India, also known as “God’s Own Country”. HRMA works to preserve and promote Indian culture, especially Kerala’s culture, through various festivals and events throughout the year. Examples include the Onam festival, Christmas/New Year Celebration, and Summer Picnic.
We hope for cooperation and support from all of you to make this association a vibrant one and to participate in activities for the benefit of our society.
