Meet Your Governors

Mega projects to boost PR

A greenfield hospice, Nimmathi ($1 million) will be set up by RC Bangalore Midtown with club donations, CSR/GG grants and fundraisers. Through a process of underground recharge near a lake and filtration, “we supply six lakh litres of potable water, 50 per cent of daily requirement, to Devanahalli town. This project worth ₹2 crore attracts municipality officials to study and replicate it in their areas,” says Satish Madhavan.

E-autorickshaws will be given to 100 women, and 400 child heart surgeries will be done under Project Gift of Life. “We have done 2,000 service projects in the first six months of this Rotary year including a vision centre (CSR: ₹8 crore) at the Sri Sathya Sai Sarla Hospital, Muddenahalli; two telemedicine centres at Chikkaballapur; a mental wellness drive touching 10,000 people; a palliative care unit (₹27 lakh) at the Government Medical College, Tirupati; and digital classes at 6,000 Arivu Kendras in villages.”

A novel Epilepsy Prevention Integrated Care (EPIC) project was held recently, 15 creches were upgraded in Ramanagara and Kolar districts, and over 100 digital classrooms, STEM Labs were set up in government schools. His TRF-giving target is $1 million. Confident of the headcount crossing 4,000 from 3,500-plus across 90 clubs, he says Rotary “is a perfect platform to give back to society, and be part of a global effort of doing good.”

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Raising GG awareness in clubs

Having found that among the 91 district clubs, “a large number of them, some even over 25 years old, have not done a single global grant project, I urged them to do a GG, with required mentoring,” says Sivakumar.

Now thanks to this approach, RC ­Dharmapuri will be setting up two dialysis centres (₹32 lakh) at charity hospitals; eight Hosur clubs have donated five dialysis units ($50,000) at the government hospital, ­Krishnagiri; RC Yercaud will be supplying equipment for blood storage and peripherals (₹28 lakh) to the neonatal ward of the GH, Yercaud; and RCs ­Sankagiri ($32,000) and Salem Texcity ($33,000) will be giving medical equipment to the government hospital and primary health care centre respectively.

In 2015–16, he led Project Hope (₹72 lakh) which distributed around 700 artificial limbs to Sri Lankan students. “It was an eye-opener for me. I got passionately involved in Rotary projects from then on, though I joined it in 2008.” Following positive feedback from that project, his district clubs distributed 1,000 bicycles to Lankan students in the first phase in March, with the resolve to reach out to 4,000 beneficiaries in the coming months.

His target for TRF-giving is $500,000. “Service projects that change lives motivate me to do better and expand my reach to the underprivileged,” he smiles.

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Promoting organ donation

A well-known ambassador for organ donation, Dr Sandeep Chauhan is promoting this cause for over 10 years in Rajasthan, ­Haryana and Punjab, “through seminars, special events and medical camps ,” he says. After he joined Rotary in 2011, he took up many projects to create awareness on cadaver organ donation among the public.

He wants to organise at least 250 medical camps, each of which will screen around 250 patients for various ailments. He has inaugurated key projects including a diagnostic lab (GG: $30,000) in Mansa; and two dialysis centres (GG: $30,000) at a charity hospital in Uklana, Haryana, and the GH, Ahmednagar. Another GG project worth $25,000 for installing a blood component separator for thalassaemia patients at the Tapovan Blood Bank, Sri Ganganagar, is in the pipeline.

The district clubs make full use of a mammography bus in the last four years, “and this year we will reach out to 1,500 beneficiaries. We also have a standby mobile clinic from the Tapovan Bank,” he explains. For TRF-giving, he aims to collect $225,000. Chauhan has prepared a calendar of service projects like tree plantation, blood donation and road safety awareness. “Each month, our clubs take up one signature project for a joint initiative.”

He has inducted 160 new members and wants to add 100 more to the tally of 2,700-plus across 135 clubs as on March.

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Big-ticket projects in NCR

For this businessman involved in global trade, “service to humanity” keeps him motivated, and “I enjoy fellowship that connects me with new friends right from 2005 when I joined Rotary,” says Mahesh Trikha.

His big-ticket projects include 5–7 new check dams (₹51 lakh) in Alwar, Rajasthan; medical equipment ($15,000) to Maharaja Agrasen Hospital, Delhi; and hi-tech gadgets ($276,000) to a new Rotary Eye Centre at the Vivekanand Arogya Kendra, Gurugram — all of them under GGs in the pipeline. “We will vaccinate 50,000 girls against cervical cancer in the first phase. Our HPV camps are also held in Bengaluru, Guntur and Jaipur.”

The district has three mammography buses that screen thousands of women every year; a dental hygiene care bus, a diabetes testing van, and a mobile clinic that holds mental wellness camps — all the three vehicles reach out to hundreds of beneficiaries a month. “Our adult literacy programme covers over a lakh of new learners, and this year, we are training 40,000 government school teachers to upgrade their pedagogy,” smiles Trikha. While one million cloth bags are distributed, plastic bags are retrieved from vendors, small shops and retailers.

Over 1,000 cataract surgeries are done each year, and the Rotary Prem Sagar Goel Heart Hospital, Gurugram, is doing congenital heart, cleft lip and palate, and club foot surgeries at a marginal cost for some time now. He aims to collect $1.8 million for TRF.