Rotaractors design white canes for the blind

The Rotaractors of RAC PSCMR College of Engineering Technology, RID 3020, designed and donated white canes to four blind people. “The canes can sense obstacles on the path and alert the user. It has an inbuilt SOS button that, when pressed, can inform the next of kin the whereabouts of the user in case he/she loses the way. The inbuilt GPS can easily help them track the blind person,” says club president J Nareshkumar. Enthused with the success of their experiment, the members are all set to design more such state-of-the-art assistive devices this year under the leadership of Rtr Saketh.

The university-based club at Vijayawada, with 129 members, boasts of the highest Rotaract membership in the district and was sponsored by RC Vijayawada Midtown. Nareshkumar, having completed his graduation this year, is all set to move out of this club this year. He, along with 35 friends, college and school mates, are ready to become charter members of a community-based Rotaract club sponsored by the parent Rotary. “We are awaiting the charter presentation, and our new Rotaract club will, in turn, soon be chartering another Rotaract club,” he says. He is presently serving as a zonal Rotaract representative for 2023–24.

The club is bonding with international Rotaract clubs through Project 67. “We want to reach out to 6 continents and connect with them over Rotary’s 7 areas of focus; hence ‘67’,” explains Nareshkumar. Under this project, the club reached out to RAC Piarco, Trinidad, and conducted a Peace Walk there. “The participants held banners of both our clubs at the peace walk and later, over an online platform, we mutually exchanged information about our service projects being executed in our lands,” explains Nareshkumar.

The club is in touch with a Rotaract club in Europe and this time the area of focus is promoting basic literacy and education. “We collected and sent them funds to purchase books and stationery to be donated to schoolchildren there.”

All the members of the club have been regular visitors to an old age home and an orphanage during the last Rotary year. They would visit the two institutions every month to entertain the inmates and provide them with essential items such as toiletries, groceries and medicines, fruits and vegetables. “There are 50 ‘grandparents’ and 60 little children in both the homes. All of us have grown fond of them now,” smiles the club president. The members divide themselves into teams and take turns to visit the homes. On festivals and special days, they prepare food at a Rotaractor’s home and serve it to the children and the elderly.

“All of us pitch in with the funds for this project,” he says and recalls a fundraiser cricket tournament played at Guntur. It had a participation of 120 members. “Each of us contributed ₹700 for the 9-day tournament. It was a fun event that strengthened our bond, and we managed to raise ₹40,000 through sponsors.”

There are 50 ‘grandparents’ and 60 little children in both the homes. All of us have grown fond of them now.
– J Nareshkumar, president, RAC PSCMR College of Engineering Technology

The members visited a primary school and organised games for the children. The Rotaractors also visit a goshala in Vijayawada and donate fruits and vegetables to feed the animals housed there. On Ganesh Chaturthi, they distributed 1,500 clay Ganesh idols to the people in the slums to enable them to celebrate the festival in an eco-friendly manner.