Presentation to WERC of trip to India – summarized by Rotarian David Shaw

In early 2006 the parents of that year’s President David Shaw visited their Indian relatives in Kolkata. They discovered that one of their relatives, Rina Guha, was involved in a rehabilitation & research Institute for mentally Challenged children called Ahead.. The children who attend come from varying backgrounds: some from Mother Teresa’s Hostel and others from middle class families. Everyone pays for the special schooling based on their financial position.

Ahead was thirty years old but lacked its own building. Through generous grants and support from The Rotary Club of Kolkata their dream of a new building was coming to fruition and therefore the institute was beginning a new era.

David’s parents were so impressed with the project, noting the Rotary involvement, that they thought why not ask their son’s club to consider supporting the equipping of a special vocational training floor of the new building which could also be used by the local community to produce extra income for the project. .

After a passionate presentation to our club by David’s parents the Club unanimously agreed, after a suggestion from Philip Reynolds Past District Governor & Rotary Foundation Chairman to consider a matching grant project with The Rotary Club of Kolkata Metropolitan.

The opportunity arose to visit the institute and to see its work for ourselves and to help complete the matching grant application was too good an opportunity to miss. So in November 07 two couples from the club decided to visit the project. Through e- mailings, however, they also became aware of an invitation to take part in Rotary’s Polio eradication days in India as well as Taj Mahal Hosting in Agra in Northern India.

An experience of a lifetime awaited David & Eileen Osmond & David & Catherine Shaw.

The next visit was to the polio eradication days in the Agra villages. We didn’t appreciate until we arrived that our donation of $150 dollars per couple was to sponsor our own little event! Lots of Banners & Posters had been put up days before saying David & Catherine Shaw & David & Eileen Osmond were sponsoring the Polio vaccination days for under 5 years olds. It was again very simply done with the support of local villagers who were paid to assist together with Rotarians & a local Rotarian Doctor whose family was from the local village. We wore yellow tabards with Rotary Polio on & there was a banner on a motorbike- type cart with a loud speaker playing music & announcing we were coming with the Vaccine.

The procedure was that children under five (we were told we could tell their age by their teeth i.e. if none or small milk teeth O.K. If obviously full adult teeth NO ) They were to be given two drops from a bottle of the live vaccine which was kept in a special cold storage container, Catherine & Eileen bravely carried out most of this task whilst the two David’s gave out little presents of a plastic whistle & a pencil. Each child after their vaccination was marked on their little finger nail with permanent marker pen. With the number of children & parents who came out to see these strange white people offering gifts the process was chaotic but in its own way a well organised system. We guess we vaccinated about 400 children over a matter of a couple of hours. It was manic! The sad thing is that for a simple plastic whistle from a white person, who they thought meant a secure process & a novelty, they were willing to come straight to us & receive two drops in their mouths from a bottle! Local people were helping which obviously helped to give them the confidence.

We stayed whilst in the Polio vaccination region of Agra with a Rotary Family. This was a great experience seeing Indian family life.