Russian Rotary leaders get trained in Delhi

With the Covid pandemic making international travel extremely difficult, and the war raging in Ukraine adding problems to mobility, recently Russian Rotary leaders — DG Alexandr, DGE Maria Gaurilieva and DGN Alexi, along with five of their regional directors from the pilot RI District 2223 — underwent training at the Rotary International’s South Asia Office in Delhi, says past RI director from India Manoj Desai.

PRID Desai and PRID Mikael ­Ahlberg, RI District 2410, as co-chairs, conducted the training, along with PDG Bina Desai, in Delhi. “­During the last three years, in-person meeting was not possible for obvious reasons, but the training in all important parameters of Rotary, such as membership, TRF giving and improving the public image of Rotary, was badly required to get optimum results from the district and give Rotary members all necessary experiences to enjoy Rotary. RI staff Laurie and Farah were supportive of this idea of training the Russians in India and helped to overcome many challenges,” said Desai.

He thanked the RISAO staff in Delhi “under the leadership of Rajeev Ranjan for sparing no efforts to make the training programme both grand, successful and memorable.” The training was conducted from Nov 30 to Dec 2, and certificates were given. “We took them to see the Taj Mahal in Agra and they were really thrilled,” he added.

The delegates were also hosted to a dinner by ICC chair Namrata Suri and a lunch meeting was organised at Agra by PDG Sharat Chandra and DGE Neerav.

Desai added that during this trip, the Russian Rotary leaders learnt about “how Indian Rotary is growing and creating a sizable impact in the community.They are committed to replicate this enthusiasm and put in hard work to get the desired results in all the five regions of Russia, spread over 11 time zones.”