Empowering girls
Rotary Club of Madras East, RID 3232, recently launched a global grant project worth ₹95 lakh and it was inaugurated by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The club aims to equip five schools of the Ramakrishna Mission Sarada Vidyalaya in Chennai with a range of facilities including training 1,600 school teachers by the Madras Dyslexia Association to identify children with special needs. This inclusiveness was greatly appreciated by the Defence Minister.
Other initiatives under the global grant includes setting up computer labs and sophisticated laboratories for higher secondary students, equipping a primary school with classroom furniture, and upgrading all the five schools with energy efficient electrical fittings that will help save electricity bills. Most of the students in these schools are first generation learners, children of single parents and hail from underprivileged families. Providing good ambience and infrastructure for such children will help in sustaining their interest in continuing education, said Club President R M Narayanan.
Rotary Club of San Antonio, RID 5840, and TRF are the international partners. This is the largest of the 19 global grants project implemented by the club, and it will benefit a total of 3,700 girls from all the five schools. Rotary Clubs of Ann Arbor and Chicago are the other participating clubs for this ambitious initiative.
This endeavour is part of the club’s theme for the year — Empower the girl, energise the world.
The club also equipped Hindu Mission College of Nursing in the city with 40 computers and air conditioners at a cost of ₹14 lakh. The facilities will help in enhancing the technical knowledge of nurses and improve their competencies and overall quality of healthcare practice, says Magesh Pattabhiraman, the club’s Vocational Service Director.
Dr Sriram, Medical Director, Hindu Mission Hospital, is confident that the improved infrastructure will increase the student strength from the present 200 to 700 students, 80 per cent of whom will be girls.
The project was inaugurated by club member Ramesh Ananthakrishnan, who is also Director of DSM Soft, the primary sponsors of the facility, and past president M Srinivasan. It is part of a multi-crore facility put up by the hospital for the nurses’ training programme.
