Pune Rotaract sends flood relief to Punjab
A flood relief initiative of the Rotaract Club of Pune Katraj is earning praise from its Rotaract District 3131 leadership, as they reached out to rain-hit families in Punjab and Maharashtra with a neatly packaged relief kit consisting of food items and daily essentials.
Looking back at the project which was completed within a month (September), club president Umer Karim says, “Our RID 3131 clubs (Pune) joined the efforts of mobilising relief material and donations after seeing us striving hard to collect donations from individual houses and philanthropists. A team of 20 Rotaractors went across Pune to mobilise both funds and material like food items and dresses before they were neatly sorted and packed for delivery.” Rotaractors from RID 3170 also donated for the purchase of relief material. Each relief kit consisted of 5kg rice, 2kg dal, 1-litre oil or 1kg salt (as per availability), a soap packet, two sanitary pads packets, ORS powder, two blankets, medicines and a set of warm clothes.
While a small part of 350 relief kits worth ₹50,000 were distributed to rain affected families at Solapur and Beed districts of Maharashtra through a mini truck, the major portion was sent by train to Chandigarh. From there, Rotaractors of RID 3080 unloaded the goods and delivered to the beneficiary families across Punjab. “We started and completed the entire mobilisation, packing and distribution within 20 days or so, thanks to good coordination among Rotaractors.”
Karim says Rotaract leaders, namely DRR Dwijesh Nashikkar, district general secretary Niharika Chaturvedi, and PDRR Akshay More “helped our clubs in finishing the task of relief distribution to flood-hit families in Punjab in a time-bound manner.” From RID 3170, members from RACs Venugram-Belgaum, Krishna Valley and Mapusa collected relief material worth ₹20,000.
In another outreach, the club donated stationery items and books to 80 orphaned children at the St Mary’s Society, Guruwarpeth, a Pune neighbourhood, with contributions from large-hearted people. “Two women Rotaractors visited Jammu and Kashmir and Nagaland, and tied rakhi (sibling thread of love) on the wrist of soldiers at the army camps. Over 100 army men got our rakhi gift ahead of Raksha Bandhan,” says Karim.
At least 3–4 times a month, all the 25 club members come together for community events such as food distribution, cloth donation etc, and “we hold a couple of personality grooming sessions for our members that help them with valuable tips for a successful life,” says Karim. Every first weekend of the month, the club’s BoD meets to take stock of the project work done so far, and “chart our future programmes by drafting the schedule to be followed.” The 17-year-old community-based club has a good balance of businessmen, entrepreneurs and college students in membership. “We levy an annual fee of ₹2,500 per head to part-fund our service projects.”
Leading the marketing unit of a private advertising firm, Umer Karim has pleasant memories of his five-year stint in Rotaract, and “I will join my parent Rotary club (RC Pune Katraj) in the next two years to expand my service activity,” he smiles.
