• Thanks ...

Team Reports
• Tom Belton
• Leslie Fields
• Jean Hutton
• Julie Coad
• Cindy Harris
• Gray Cavanagh

You can also download a PDF version of this report from our Distributions page.

“To Help We Help Which Helps the Helped”

Julie Coad — Yellowknife, NT

... with our Ambattur Rotary partners. From Chennai 2008 Photo Album

The Rotary Club of Ambattur is the team behind the scenes for the Chennai, India, distribution. This impressive group oversees three major long-term projects. The Rotary Club of Ambattur have a solid group of volunteers who work together to make these long-term projects happen. All short-term projects must fall within the scope of these three projects, including their fundraising events.

• The Ambattur Rotary Hospital, at Ambattur Industrial Estate, was purchased and is run by a Rotary board of directors, and Rotarians are on site each day to volunteer their time to oversee it. For a small fee the hospital offers such services to the people of India as eye care, rehabilitation, treatment for general medical issues, multiple fractures, brain injuries, intensive care, complicated surgery, maternity ward, and dentistry. It is a fantastic hospital offering health care to the people of India. There is also a polio rehabilitation centre for children on site.

• The TV Nagar Educational Society, at Ambattur, is a school for under-privileged children. This is where our last distribution occurred. The school was purchased by the Ambattur Rotary Club when it was just one room and had a thatched roof. After five full phases of development, the school has been redesigned it to make excellent use of the location and on site it has classrooms, full bathrooms (which is one of the few schools which supplies this), along with a traditional kitchen and a modern kitchen. It is 2,500 sq feet and has about 530 students, both boys and girls. They have equipped classrooms including a video lab, computer lab and library. Meals are provided by the school. The students must pay a fee of 1,000 rupees at the beginning of the school year to attend. If they cannot afford it the Rotarians find a sponsor to support their education. The students also have a chance to achieve a Murray Dryden Scholarship for academic achievement. The Rotary Club of Ambattur is certainly ensuring that the under privileged children are receiving support. The school also provides extracurricular activities, such as dance, football, volleyball, and students are taken to various co-curricular events by the teachers. The Rotarians are continuously on site to oversee the functions of the school.

• Sleeping Children Around the World is the third important project for the Rotary Club of Ambattur.

What does SCAW mean to the Rotary Club of Ambattur?

It means to “Help We Help Which Helps the Helped.

The Rotary Club of Ambattur has done an amazing job of making this project a success since 1985. They accomplish incredible background preparation work over the year. Presentation to various Rotary Clubs in the Chennai area are made to bring other villages and groups on board for this project. They talk about Murray Dryden and the development of SCAW, along with some fantastic video clips of the founder and a distribution. If this partnership can be formed the Rotary Club then invites them to see a distribution in progress, while the Canadian team is on site. Areas are selected for distributions, then a whole process of identifying deserving beneficiaries and venues in these villages occur. A massive tracking system takes place. Items are ordered from the various manufacturers and a month prior to the distribution these items are packaged by the various volunteers and hired employees so that the bedkits are ready when the SCAW team arrives.

A school for polio children was hired to assemble some of the bedkits. A lot of back-breaking efforts in procuring and packing goes into the preparation. The Rotary Club of Ambattur volunteers about 9,000 hours and about $5 per kit from their end. The Canadian team arrives, checking on the quality of the items and ensuring that identification of deserving beneficiaries is in place, as they distribute the bedkits and take photographs of the children. The Rotary Club of Ambattur does a amazing job to make sure it is a smooth, clean process as they travel throughout India with the Canadian SCAW team. The same group of volunteers was on site at every distribution, which is stunning, considered we traveled to 10 venues, dealing with various Rotary Clubs and private organizations, touching the life of approximately 130 schools and 6,000 children.

The Canadian SCAW team travelling to Chennai in 2008 wants to say thanks for a job well done to the Rotary Club of Ambattur, the many volunteers involved both in Canada and India, and the donors and sponsors who made this project happen.