The look of relief on the parents’ face when they saw their son cured of a congenital disorder at the camp was our most cherished gift,” says PDG Dhiran Datta, chairman of the RAHAT medical mission hosted by RC Jhabua, RID 3040, for a week in February, at Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh. The 12-year-old boy was suffering from a condition where his right arm was stuck to his cheek, and fingers intertwined with his mouth. “A year after his birth we had taken him to a couple of sadhus who said that he was cursed. We had accepted his condition until now. These divine men (Rotarians) have now saved our son and no words are enough to convey our thanks to them,” said the mother, with tears rolling down her cheeks, recalls Datta.

When Amrut Dhara, a global grant project conceived and executed by members of RC Aurangabad West, RID 3132, to set up a modern, well-equipped human milk bank, was finally inaugurated at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Government Medical College and Hospital in the city, it proved the tenacity of this bunch of Rotarians led by the club’s past ­president Hemant Landge. The project proposal had come to the club way back in 2018. Putting together a huge sum of $58,000 required, and then navigating through the challenges of the unprecedented Covid pandemic, during which medical services were not only overstretched but their priorities had also shifted, were no mean tasks. But team Amrut Dhara, led by project chair Landge, stayed focused on what they had to do to see this work through.