Delhi Rotaract offers ‘Suraksha’ against cancer

If you wonder what a new Rotaract club can do in terms of projects and community outreach, then you only need to look at RAC Delhi South East, RID 3011, a less than two-year-old club which has just completed the fourth phase of its cervical vaccination campaign under Project HPV Suraksha Sankalp (ensuring protection).

Explaining in detail about the vaccination drive, the club’s charter president Kartik Dawar says in the first phase they conducted an awareness session for over 700 parents and students at the Bosco Public School, Paschim Vihar. This was followed by a virtual event for 120 Rotaractors from RIDs 3011 and 3012 where “both male and female members were invited to get themselves vaccinated.”

During the third phase, 280–300 persons were vaccinated including Rotaractors, teachers and students at the Bosco School; and in the next phase, around 300 students, both boys and girls, were inoculated against the cancer at the Bal Bharati Pubic School. “So far, the expenditure cost of ₹70 lakh was made good through CSR grants,” says Dawar.

As the WHO prescribes a minimum of six months gap between two mandatory doses against cervical cancer, “we have to wait for sometime before we proceed with the next two phases of our vaccination project at these two schools.”

Eco-swap activities

In July last year, they planted 500 saplings at the Dilshad ­Gardens in East Delhi to kickstart “a ­multi-phase initiative on environmental protection through sustainable development. Later on, they conducted a webinar on this critical topic in which 470 participants, including 250 Rotaractors from India, and members from Nepal and Sri Lanka, exchanged their views on ways to protect the fragile environment which is vital to sustain life on the planet, explains Dawar. Among the speakers were three honchos of companies working in the sphere of ecological protection.

In a massive work to remove plastic waste from various sources, “we collected around 500 kg of discarded plastics at three different locations. On Gandhi Jayanthi (Oct 2), 150 volunteers mobilised 150kg of plastics from the Yamuna Ghat in a mega clean-up drive. Then DG Mahesh Trika and over 20 Rotarians also took part in collecting the plastic debris and other litter from the riverbank,” recalls Dawar.

Leading dailies gave a good coverage of the Rotaract’s clean-up drive at the Yamuna Ghat the next day. Next, they set up a huge collection cage at the Maharaja ­Agrasen Institute of Technology, Rohini, in North Delhi, which helped “us to ship out 200kg of plastic waste from the college campus.”

In the last leg of their Eco-swap project, 70–80 volunteers and Rotaractors collected 150kg of plastic discards from their houses, and nearby areas, and delivered them to Rotary Plastic Warriors. “We also gave a sizeable quantity of plastic waste and discards to private recyclers who segregate, slot and use them for making fancy products,” which are either sold or given as mementos in various events.

Through Project Swasth Sethu (healthy bridge), four health check-up camps and four blood donation camps were held in different areas in a time-bound manner. “Around 7,800 beneficiaries at different communities and government schools were screened for health issues; while we collected 500 units of blood,” says Dawar.

Expressing happiness over his five-year Rotaract stint, the final year Law student of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, North Delhi, is “looking forward to join Rotary once I get settled in my profession in the next few years,” Dawar smiles. He is doing internship at the Delhi High Court and Supreme Court.