Gift of Mobility
Gautam Manjhre has lived without a leg “ever since I was born.” He was born with a physical deformity. But now he has “no words to thank Rotary for giving me this uphaar (gift) of the prosthetic limb. My life will change now.” RC Pune Magarpatta City, along with Rotary Clubs Khadki, Pune Kalyani Nagar and Pune Lokmanyanagar of D 3131, RC Lexington, D 7620, Maryland, RC Denver, D 5450, Colorado and TRF, have raised $53,488 to provide 372 amputees with below-the-knee modular prosthesis, under the project ‘Gift of Mobility’.
PDG Deepak Purohit.
RC Pune Magarpatta City started this as their club project a year ago. Hemang Kulkarni, the project’s primary contact, says, “We first started with an online campaign that highlighted the root cause for amputation and how it can be prevented. Today the campaign has reached 1,00,000 people.” In 2016, the club sponsored LN4 prosthetic hands to 23 amputees, and applied for a global grant to reach out to more physically-challenged people.
The project was inaugurated in August by PRIP and TRF Trustee Gary Huang in the presence of DG Abhay Gadgil, DRFC Deepak Shikarpur and Suryakant Choudhari, President of RC Pune Magarpatta City.
