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Rotary magic at a Pune rural school

Projects

It was during a casual visit to a relative’s house at Ravadi village, near Pune, by a Rotarian that led to a much-needed makeover for the Krantiveer Vasudev Balwant Phadke Vidyalaya, a Marathi medium school in Bhor taluk. With no compound wall, broken toilet fittings and a rough, unusable playground, the school presented a decrepit look. As the morale of students and teachers was at its nadir, school principal Ravindra Pawar requested Alka Rode, a member of RC Pune Sports City, for urgent help to build a compound fence for the school to ward off anti-social elements freely entering the premises, and creating a nuisance.

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Rotary gifts a state-of-the-art library for visually-challenged at Jadavpur University

Projects

When you push open the door of the accessible library’s main room, the first face that will catch your attention is that of Shubhojit — the most energetic young man, always wearing a smile. Ask him anything, and he will promptly spring into action. Welcome to the world of Shubhojit, Shubhodip, Bablu, Akash, Asikul, and many more visually-impaired students of Jadavpur ­University (JU), Kolkata, who are pursuing undergraduate, postgraduate, and even doctoral studies. Each day presents its own set of challenges, but their spirit is never daunted by the weight of those struggles. The accessible library at this varsity is their home away from home — a place where their needs are understood and their voices heard, and where they are equal stakeholders alongside the faculty and administration in shaping the future they deserve.

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Women and dabbas

LBW

There is a classical saying in Hindi “Pran jaye per vachan na jaye.” It means a person will die before breaking a promise. For many Indian women, it’s more like “Pran jaye per dabba na jaye,” meaning if they have sent you something to eat in a box, they are very loath to forfeit the box, or dabba. They don’t care whether you liked the contents of the dabba; they care only about the dabba and absolutely insist on getting it back. I found this out to my cost nearly half a century ago. A friend’s mother had sent me some undhiyu, a Gujarati dish that is apparently cooked upside down underground slowly in an earthenware pot and comprises a lot of vegetables and ghee. It’s marvellously heavy to eat. I wrote to the lady thanking her for the thought and the delicacy and she wrote back immediately saying “I am glad you liked it. Please keep the container safely, I will collect it when I am next in Delhi.” Those days the postal department used to have a service called QMS, or quick mail service. Letters reached Bombay and Calcutta, as they were called then, in 24 hours. Madras took 36 hours. Much to my dismay, I had given the box away to the maid, who had grabbed it gleefully.

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The magic of fresh air

Health

An ounce of oxygen leads to the bounce in your body. As you inhale, your lungs pluck the oxygen from the air, which includes nitrogen and other gases like carbon dioxide. The lungs then circulate the oxygen through your body. The pure oxygen is absorbed by your red blood cells into your haemoglobin and these tiny sponges of oxygen bob in your bloodstream and feed the tissues (muscle, bone, nerves). A group of cells form a tissue, and a group of tissues form your organs — heart, lungs, ­stomach, etc. These sponges squeeze out the oxygen and absorb the waste carbon from your tissue. They then bob back to your lungs from where the waste gas is expelled as you exhale.

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Tiny drops make mighty oceans

Go Green

When you live in a coastal city like I do, you become deeply aware of the vast expanse of sea, its smells and sounds. The vast expanse of water impacts our life. Recently, we were enlightened about the sea and its linkage to humanity, animals and plants at an event in the Alliance Française of Madras, in collaboration with the French Institute in India and the French Embassy.

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Driven by green dreams

People of action

It’s unusual to see a team sustain an initiative for seven years with unwavering commitment and purpose. But the Rotary Club of Chennai ­Meraki, RID 3233, an all-women’s club, has done just that: taking its environmental message across the country through an annual car expedition, now in its ­seventh year.

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The Golden Sparrows of Chennai

Doing good with TRF help

Apart from being a daughter, wife, to mother and family matriarch, a woman has to overcome many challenges in her personal and professional life, said Chennai mayor Priya Rajan at the inaugural of Golden Sparrow, a ­one-day women’s ­carnival in Chennai, organised by RID 3233 led by DG Mahaveer Bothra. “Women should be celebrated in society; we have got innate capabilities to ­succeed in life despite odds and pitfalls.”

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Meet your Governors

Feature/Profile

Club members are well-acquainted with Rotary’s legacy of global service, “as the more they learn about Rotary, the better Rotarians they become. Hence, as a priority initiative, all the district clubs conducted a Rotary Knowledge Quiz, and zonal competitions were held at six places. In the district finals, 12 teams contested in November last year,” says Santhosh Sreedhar. With 2,865 Rotarians across 84 clubs in the Malabar region of Kerala, his target is to add 500 new members, of which 280 have been inducted already. The DG has chartered four new clubs, and will form 15 more by June-end.

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Rotary miracles do happen

Rotary International Events

The Rotary Foundation is the one that “keeps all of us together as it is the very soul and spirit of Rotary,” said PRIP K R Ravindran, addressing delegates at the district conference of RID 3231 in Chennai titled Raj Utsav. The Foundation enables ‘dreamers’ to become ‘doers’ as Rotary is now in the formidable business of literacy, healthcare, helping people to live in dignity by providing opportunities, all of these possible due to the strong roots of TRF, he explained. “We need peace, good health, clean drinking water and sanitation facilities to live with dignity, support for women and child care, education, and to help communities to grow — all these form the six focus areas of RI,” he added.

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