Cycling for a cause & Promoting Peace

The fourth edition of a very colourful Tour de Rotary, a cycle rally with 800 enthusiastic participants, spreading out into a sea of orange safety jackets down the streets of Chennai, was flagged off from the Phoenix Market City by ADGP C Sylendra Babu.

The rally was divided into three categories — 10, 50 and 100 km and Babu opted for the 100 km slot.

“The enthusiastic cyclists gathered at the venue by 5 a m and we had 150 NCC cadets from the Army, Navy and Air Force wings participating. We also had 30 schoolchildren taking part in the event,” says Usha Kumar, President of RC Madras Midtown, D3232, that organised the event, where the chief guest was DG R Srinivasan.

Adding to the colourful and vibrant activity were warming up and Zumba sessions conducted by Anytime Fitness. Every participant received a medal, a goodies bag and a gift voucher worth ₹ 750 from ­Reebok, apart from a sumptuous breakfast before they undertook this rigorous activity.

This year the cause was Cancer Care and the rally coincided with World Cancer Day. The club gave a token donation of ₹ 1 lakh to the Jeevan Stem Cell Foundation, which also works in the area of cancer. The rest of the money raised will be used for a good cancer project.

Peace and understanding

Usha added that the club has done another project which has got them a letter of appreciation from PRIP Gary Huang. She said promoting peace is one of the core objectives of Rotary.  Each year, the birthday of Rotary is celebrated by Rotarians and Rotary families as the World Peace and Understanding Day. As our world is afflicted by “little skirmishes, misunderstandings, communal clashes, regional differences, factionalism”, all of which have the potential to shatter world peace, her club decided to launch a project to promote world peace and understanding.

Believing that global peace begins with each one of us, Usha and past president Ambalavanan of RC Madras Midtown teamed up to conceive a project of having Rotarians  take a pledge to promote peace and rededicate themselves to the Four Way Test. It was decided to take such a pledge on the day the first Rotary meet was held in Chicago, Feb 23, 1905.

The project was launched by RI Director C Basker at the 3232 district conference in Chennai on Feb 18.