A Rotaract PR drive at college fest

Following a request from the school authority, a team of eight Rotaractors from RAC Dahisar Coast, RID 3141, camped at the Tambe Education Society School, a government-aided institute, and distributed black shoes to 100 students as part of their Happy School project which is providing school essentials to students over the last seven years. “We also donated six ceiling fans for their classrooms, and gave sanitary napkins to 70 girls studying there,” said Mitti Doshi, club president.

Every year this community-based club with 37 Rotaractors at present used to either pay tuition fees of underprivileged students or donate stationery items at government schools under Project Happy School. Thanks to their well-diversified membership consisting of working professionals including lawyers, doctors, engineers and chartered accountants, apart from college students, “financing our projects is never a challenge. We collected money from our families, friends, Rotarians and alumni of our club for the Happy School project which cost ₹27,000 this year,” explained Mitti. Snack boxes were distributed to 80 children at the Gopinath Munde playground, Dahisar, a hotspot for youth and sports buffs from underprivileged colonies.

PR drive

A team of 7–8 Rotaractors visited the four-day cultural fest at the Aditya group of colleges at Borivali to engage students and create awareness on Rotary, Rotaract and their global activities. “Through pamphlets and three banners put up there, we drew visitors and got positive enquiries about the work we do. The positive vibes on Rotary we created at the college fest will help us to attract new Rotaractors in the near future,” she said.

The Rotaractors meet twice a month to deliberate on their upcoming service projects, take stock of the work being done and plan ahead for the future. Expressing her gratitude to their parent club, RC Mumbai Dahisar, for their “unstinted support and encouragement in all our endeavours,” Mitti pointed out that their parent club president Avinash Naimpally “gives us helpful suggestions and ideas for planning our project schedule.” Moreover, the Rotarians readily come forward to sponsor Rotaract projects, thus strengthening their bonding with the youth brigade of Rotary.

Recently, the Rotaractors did all the spadework for the felicitation event in which Class 10, 12 board toppers were honoured by their Rotary club. “We went to schools, spoke to the parents and invited them, along with their children, for the awards event in which we anchored the sessions,” she said. While Rotaractors are always present in Rotary’s community initiatives, “we also give our ideas, inputs during the planning sessions for mega events in and around Dahisar.”

Now engaged in supporting her family enterprise as a practising CA, Mitti Doshi recalled her three-year Rotaract journey enabled her to gain many new friends through networking and “hone my public speaking skills.” She has not thought of becoming a Rotarian till now, but “maybe after a couple of years, I will give a serious attention to the idea of being a full-fledged member of a Rotary club,” she adds.