HOW I GOT INVOLVEDI have been a member of the Rotary Club of St. John's Northwest since 1994 serving on the Board and eventually serving as President in 2002-2003. Since then, I served three years as Trainer for District 7820 and since 2006 have been the Assistant District Governor. I am also founding Chair of the Atlantic Rotary Leadership Institute Atlantique for Districts 7810 and 7820. In 2006, I was presented my Paul Harris Fellowship by then President of Rotary International, Karl Wilhelm-Stenhammer.
In September 2007, while organizing a Rotary Leadership Institute session in Halifax, Nova Scotia, I met Past District Governor Elias Thomas from Maine USA. He told us he was returning to India in 2008 to continue work in a small, desolate and impoverish community near Delhi. He suggested I come along.
As a member of Rotary International for nearly 17 years, this was the opportunity of a life time. There are now 4of us from Newfoundland going - Tom and Shirley McCaughey, Catherine Coole and myself.
POLIO NATIONAL IMMUNIZATION DAYS (NID)
Since 1979, Rotarians have passionately worked to eradicate polio. In 1985 Rotary International pledged to raise $120 M USD to buy polio vaccines. This served as the catalyst for the World Health Assembly's decision in 1988 to initiate the Global Polio Eradication Strategy. Working with the World Health Organization, the US Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and UNICEF, Rotary remains a major player in the fight to eliminate polio. It can be eliminated by placing two simple drops of life altering medicine in the mouths of all children.
On February 10, 2008, an NID will be held in India. Our team of Rotarians and friends will immunize about 1000 children from this dreaded disease. As any Rotarian who has worked to raise money and donate to this cause, it will be emotional, exciting and humbling to provide the drops to a child so they never face the debilitating and crippling results of this horrible disease.
CHAHALKA VILLAGEThe real reason for our journey is to work with the people of the village of Chahalka India and members of the Rotary Club of Delhi-West to provide an opportunity for a better life. This small, 3000 person, poverty stricken, Muslim village is located near Sohna about 50 kilometers from Delhi. We are told it is about a two hour drive. Elias says the village is located in one of the most desolate wastelands he has ever seen.
THE FIRST PROJECT 2007In February 2007, Elias Thomas led another team of Rotarians to this same village to work on a water project to fund and build two washing platforms. The platforms would allow the women and girls of the village to wash their clothes, household linens and cooking utensils (along with an occasionally water buffalo) by drawing water from the central well and having waste water drain away from that supply of good water.
The local government provided the village with a main water reservoir. Residents were contaminating their own water supply by washing dirty clothes and linens and cleaning kitchen utensils on a platform on top of the water supply. The waste water runoff from the washing heavily polluted the water supply and the entire area had become a dirty, stinking, breeding ground for water-borne diseases, mosquitoes and other insects. When the village was initially visited by Elias' team, a lot of spillage of dirty, tainted water was draining directly into the playground of the adjacent village school, creating further potential for disease and contamination.
Often up to their knees in filthy, stinking muck, the team carried sand, stone, bricks, mortar and successfully constructed the two platforms. Since then, the platforms are being used and the main water supply quality continues to improve.
When completed, the Imam presided over a prayer blessing ceremony with chanting, incense and sweets shared by all.
The project in 2007 was conceived by Rotarian Sanjiv Saran. Elias led a team of Rotary volunteers who worked with Indian Rotarians and village residents to build two washing platforms in Chahalka to avoid the water contamination that had been so prevalent. Now, villagers do their washing away from the water supply and the school yard no longer has tainted water flowing through it.
THE 2008 PROJECTIt is difficult for Chahalka's illiterate and impoverished families to be convinced of the value of educating their children, even though education is provided free by government, especially when families have to send their children out to work to subsidize the family income or they see other educated young adults sitting around unemployed. It is even harder when they see there are so many children at the village school with so few teachers (only 3 teachers for 350 children). Many children at Class V level can barely read and write.
While working in the village, the Rotary Team had talks with the Panchayat (elder council) and identified core areas where assistance is needed to protect the health of the village and improve the community's economic situation through education and vocational training. The village council has assured full cooperation and participation of the community in any project.
In describing what is needed to improve their lives, the elders said they are very concerned that young people are leaving school to help their families earn enough money to live. As a result, their futures lay in very menial work, if any could be found. Many stop going to school because they cannot see any future in it.
With the full cooperation of the village elders, Elias decided to return in 2008 to rehabilitate a delapidated village building to be known as
The Rotary Vocational and Computer Training Center of Chahalka.
The elders feel this project will benefit the entire village by training young school dropouts in computer skills that could directly lead to entry level jobs in India's burgeoning IT industry, and by encouraging the younger children to study hard and stay in school once they see opportunities for jobs at the end.
Elders further believe it will benefit the village if vocational training, including tailoring and weaving, were available to young housewives as a way to earn additional income for their families. With the added income, families can afford to take their children off unskilled labour work and send them to free school.
Since Elias left the village, members of the Rotary Club of Delhi West returned to the village and, secured, a second, much smaller, building from the elders. As a result, our project will rehabilitate the smaller buiding, to be known as
The Rotary Day-Care Centre of Chahalka.
