How will you make your club “irresistible” to your members, and foster a “sense of belonging” in them? This is my challenge to you,” said incoming RI President Stephanie Urchick, while addressing a general session at the RI Convention in Singapore.

One Indian club’s passion for water conservation and improving the income of Indian farmers has ensured that The Rotary Foundation’s next Programs of Scale grant worth $2 million for this year has been awarded for Indian farming, as announced by TRF chair Barry Rassin at the RI Convention in Singapore. The application for this grant was made by the Rotary Club of Delhi Premier, RID 3011, which has been working over two decades in the area of water conservation, ­restoration of water bodies and building of check dams in some of the most parched regions of India.

Reflecting the troubled and conflict-ridden times we live in, the one strong message that came out of the Rotary International Convention in Singapore pertained to peace, women’s empowerment and mental health. Addressing the opening session, RI President Gordon McInally struck a poignant and sombre note when he said, “All of us know, peace has been on the minds of the world this past year — and remains on the forefront of Rotary’s mission.” Quoting the Scottish poet Robert Burns, he said this was the time people of the world, particularly Rotarians, came together to use “our common humanity and our shared desire to build a more peaceful and compassionate world, especially in the times of greatest peril. World peace is a perilous, difficult journey, and we are experiencing some trying moments right now. The troubles of the world affect us deeply, because we have friends, and sometimes family and neighbours, experiencing the heartbreak of destruction and loss.”

Now is the time for Rotarians to take action, “to move and make a commitment to increase membership, share ideas and impactful stories in their neighbourhoods, on social media to show the world the magic of Rotary,” said RIPE Stephanie Urchick.

Invite your prospective members to a service project first, and not to a club meeting. Because a club meeting can be intimidating to someone who does not understand the language. They must see what we do and who we are.

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.