The Rotary Award -- A delighter

The Rotary year begins July and ends June every year, So, towards the end of June , it is the time for the Governing team to thank every Club/ President / Rotarians for all the good things that happened through the year. Everyone needs appreciation and although  Rotary is a NGO , it is not different to any other organisation  in terms of the way it is run and so there is a “Gala Awards Nite “that happens every year and everyone is excited and happy and of course there are few that are not happy as well . You cannot satisfy everyone but by and large the Rotary family enjoys this event thoroughly.

 Last week end ( June 20 ) I was specifically invited to the Awards nite by one of the District official. I have never attended one so far  and so was confused by the specific invite and was not keen to go . But , landed up for the event and glad that I did . 

Some statistics just to bug you as to how difficult it  is to make the awards work –

1.       There are around 100 + and less than 150 Clubs in the District ( consists of Chennai and up cities going down to Vellore , Gudiyattam and beyond )
2.       Clubs have range of members – Some have less than 40 – some  more than 40 but less than 75 ( just like my club ) and some more than 75 ( largest being beyond 200 members )
3.       Several avenues are available to get recognized – Vocational Service , Community Service ( Development and Health focused ), New Generation ( deals with Colleges and schools ) International Service , family participation ( Rotary – family is a key component of what you do ) , Rotary Foundation  . Membership development , Fund raising , Happy Villages , Education  and so on
4.       The task becomes difficult to lay down parameters and to evaluate each club on the various avenues  and its members
5.       The award classification was then  based on line  2 – clubbing clubs based on their strength and evaluating them to make it ‘apple to apple “ and then top three by category
6.       There are also special Project based awards to recognize  Rotarians who have done outstanding work during the year
7.       The award function took close to five hours to complete . And the District Governor – ISAK Nazar stood through the five hours connecting with every awardee (  He personally knew the reason for the award . the club or Rotarian as the case may be  and connected so well on the stage)

As I was looking at who and whom were getting awarded in the special projects category , some of them was noteworthy and exemplary in their service

• There was one Rotarian – just 82 years young , who continued doing outstanding work with a slum in Gummidpoondi – Just working to uplift them
• There was another – 57 years with Rotary and I was thinking , why was I here ?

And then my name went up – I was for a moment bewildered  and frozen –  I was not even dressed up to get on to stage – causal T shirt ( Man U T shirt – Sandals ) and everyone on stage was in Formals !

I gathered myself up and went on stage – The Governor took a few minutes to explain why the award was for – It was the Ford – Rotary Digital Program  and the Rotary was thanking my efforts to make the program a great success.

The background :

The Ford Rotary Digital Literacy Program is a stellar program. Every year Ford donates its End of Life PC’s and laptops to needy schools and NGO’s and other institutions. Rotary and Rotarians take on the responsibility to ensure that they vet the agency to which the PC is given and  to set the infrastructure up and also continue the ongoing  monitoring. In the past years , we had focused on needs in and around the Chennai city and sometimes one off far flung towns . This was because we did not have the Legs and Arms to go beyond Chennai.

This year was different and we made a BIG difference thanks to ISAK Nazar the current year District Governor

At the start of the year, in the planning phase , I had a small little conversation with the Governor of the District – ISAK Nazar and the President of our Club Sri prakash— We really wanted to take the program beyond the Chennai city and get it to rural places where it would make a Bigger impact on the school children. Nazar was intrigued by the possibility of increasing the reach and using the Rotary  clubs through the district.  Nazar is known for his Dynamism and ability to take things forward at a very quick pace…   he nominated a SPOC from his team to help with the process. Nazar also sent out emails to each Rotary President in the District , requesting them to take this project of  Digital Literacy beyond Chennai.. The Clubs responded. Each one of Clubs did their due diligence , identified the schools , created the infrastructure. Not only they did that ,they came down to Chennai to pick up the Computers, transport them  and  have it deployed. Over the last three months,  there were several inaugurations of  several Computer labs set up at different places.

(Ford donated over 1200 PC/ laptops during the last six- eight months).  We were able to reach out to far flung towns( thanks to the Rotary Clubs)—Vandavashi . Sholingar , Arni , Arcot , Pernambut, Cheyyar , Tiruvanamalai , Vellore, Gingee, Vaniyambadi    and so on. I am mentioning these places but the PC's went to schools  several miles deep inside these towns.

It was Nazar’s  drive that helped us reach out to more needy places. I also connected  with several Rotarians from the districts at the Awards evening . They all   said that we have been able to get to schools that would have never got to using Computers (because of this initiative) and they thanked the Ford team profusely for the Digital Literacy Program that is helping make the world  a Digitally Literate one.

While the Rotarians did their job , the Ford team worked their way to ensure that things were in place to support this initiative .. What a wonderful  team at Ford that we have – so dedicated to this cause . Most of the distribution happened over  the weekends and the team supported that.

I really felt very happy that we were able to do this ..   We wanted to take the reach to better than what we were last year and we did that as a Team – Ford and Rotary

And getting  recognition at a District Level was a huge pleasant surprise and icing on the cake.