Projects to commemorate the Hyderabad Presidential Conference

To celebrate the presidential conference in Hyderabad, 10 mega, sustainable projects including distribution of 500 bicycles, 500 classroom furniture, 500 sewing machines and 100 group handwash stations were launched by RI President Shekhar Mehta.

 

iCare- Empowering Girls- Everyone can change a life

In pursuance of RI President ­Shekhar Mehta’s clarion call to empower girls/women, Rotary Club of Hyderabad Deccan, partnered by RCs Lake District Moinabad, Secunderabad, Global Champions and Hyderabad North, along with many other Rotary clubs, launched a mega project to help thousands of girls and women realise their dreams. The project named iCare, also involves Rotaractors.

Under this mega project, 500 ­bicycles were given to both school girls to empower them to reach their schools without any difficulty, and women anganwadi workers to help them reach their workplace without hassles.

Ten mega projects including distribution of 500 bicycles, 500 classroom furniture, 500 sewing machines and 100 group handwash stations were launched by
RI President Shekhar Mehta.

Under the same project, 500 women were trained in sewing and given sewing machines so that they could make a livelihood by working from their own homes.

 

RILM partners with BYJU’s

The Rotary India Literacy Mission has announced a partnership with BYJU’s that provides personalised and interactive learning solutions to children, under which the latter will provide free educational content (Classes 4–12) to underprivileged children as part of a social initiative programme named Education for All. RILM has sponsored tablets provided by BYJU’s, and eventually BJYU’s will provide licences to beneficiaries free of cost to use these tablets. This outreach will touch the lives of underprivileged children across India and give a new start to a child’s education.

This collaboration and technology will bridge the gap widened by the Covid pandemic between urban and rural children, and reach quality education to even those children living in the remote parts of India.

RILM and BYJU’s will also jointly launch the crowdfunding platform Ketto and seek donations for the devices to be loaded with BYJU’s e-learning content for underprivileged students.

 

Give hope, give a hand

For those born with an upper limb deformity, or who have lost an arm due to an accident, RI District 3150 is providing LN-4, a mechanical prosthetic hand.

These hands are imported from the US and are provided at no cost to beneficiaries from weaker sections of the community. The LN-4 distribution camp was conducted in April at the Malla Reddy University, Hyderabad, spread on a 100-acre campus. The Telangana government extended its support with the State Road Transport Corporation providing free transport to the beneficiaries at key points in the city. Over 700 recipients benefitted.

 

Project Pink Ribbon

Rotary Club of Ameerpet, Hyderabad, and RI District 3150 will focus on cancer prevention, especially in women, through the launch of community awareness programmes to combat cancer. Women will be trained about the risk factors, breast self-examination, and screening programmes for breast, cervical and oral cancer will be conducted.

Done in collaboration with the Malla Reddy Cancer Institute (MRCI), the awareness and screening camps will be done in both urban and rural areas, benefitting about 25,000 women a year.

Subsequent treatment and major surgeries, radiotherapy or other follow up can be arranged by the support of the government under the Aarogyasri scheme which offers free treatment to the underprivileged in both government and private hospitals.

 

Van of Vision

From 2001 RC Guntur and other Rotary clubs in Hyderabad are regularly involved in avoidable blindness projects through eye camps for cataract surgeries. This long experience and interaction with thousands of patients convinced the Rotarians about the urgent need for a mobile ophthalmic clinic. And a bus was converted into such a van, with different kinds of eyecare services offered. This van will serve the people of Guntur, Prakasam, ­Nellore and Telangana districts.

 

Rotary cardiac screening ambulance

Kadapa is considered the second poorest district in the Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh. In partnership with the Suvarna Bharathi Charitable Trust, RC Kadapa launched a cardiac screening ambulance service, and underprivileged people with cardiac problems will be screened by qualified medical teams of the NGO. This global grant has as foreign partner Rotary clubs in Atlanta, RI District 6920.

 

Blood collection ambulance

The Puttur Rotary Campco Blood Bank was set up in 1998, and since then it has donated free blood to needy people in the region. Covid put a halt to blood collection camps, necessitating a blood collection ambulance which was organised by RC Puttur through a global grant with Finland clubs as foreign partners. This GG was facilitated by RI Director Virpi Honkala, who attended the Hyderabad conference.

 

Guru Nanak Medical Centre

For affordable pre and post-hospitalisation diagnostics and consultation, the Guru Nanak Medical Centre, a short walk away from the busy Secunderabad Railway Station, was refurbished and modernised to include sophisticated X-ray, ultrasonography, pathology and haematology labs. The polyclinic offers consultation in orthopaedics, physiotherapy, OBG, general medicine, dentistry and ENT.

The diagnostic charges are barely one-fourth of the prevalent commercial price, and the consultation fees nominal. Initially about 300 patients will be served everyday. RC Hyderabad ­Deccan, RID 3150, and RC Naperville, RID 6450, have partnered in this global grant project to set up this centre to provide the ambience and facilities of a corporate hospital at affordable rates. The project adjoins a 15-bed dialysis centre set up by the same partners in 2016 and expanded this year. This dialysis centre has completed over 100,000 procedures, costing only ₹300 a session.

 

A Rotary Dialysis Centre in Guntur

Guntur, with a population of 5.4 million people, has only 148 dialysis machines, many of them in a state of disuse. The lack of adequate dialysis facility makes the service both rare and expensive. RC Hyderabad Deccan, with their successful experience of establishing dialysis centres, decided to set up a dialysis centre in the city, supported by RC Guntur and the Indian Red Cross Society. The result: a state-of-the-art 6,000 sqft, 12-bed facility. Named the Dr ­Chigurupati Nageswara Rao Rotary Dialysis Centre, it has been set up at the centrally located St Joseph’s General Hospital. This centre will provide both affordable and free dialysis to the needy in a sustainable manner. The capacity will be doubled as the need increases; initially it will provide about 1,000 dialysis sessions in a month.

 

Healing Hearts

Congenital heart disease (CHD) has emerged as the most common birth defect in India with over 240,000 ­children being born with such defect every year. Due to lack of timely detection and treatment, mainly due to affordability issues, CHD is a major cause of child mortality in our country; 25 per cent of children do not survive to see even their first birthday.

Project Healing Hearts aims to treat 2025 children from economically backward families suffering from CHD, by the year 2025, in partnership with Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Centres for Child Heart Care. A global grant with the participation of RC Guntur (RID 3150) as the host club, RC Fort Wayne (RID 6540), USA, as international partner and TRF, will fund surgery of 75 children at the hospital in Raipur in June.

 

Free wheelchair distribution

Rotary India Humanity Foundation will distribute free wheelchairs; 10,000 of these will be donated by the Cao Zhong Zhi Foundation to help the disabled from poor families. Preference will be given to nursing homes for the underprivileged and orphanages, institutions for the differently-abled, daycare centres and non-profit medical institutions.