No benches, No bulbs, No fans, Yet hungry for knowledge

The visit to the Kempapura Corporation School was rewarding in more ways than one. We were at the Vidya Niketan School, Kempapura, to start with, where Ms. Harsha Sodha in charge of the ‘Jyoti’ and ‘Kiran’ program which caters to the children of the Corporation Schoosl explained how the group of volunteers that in-clude students, parents and teachers were contributing to changing the lives of these underprivileged children who come into crowded classrooms without basic facilities but are eager to learn with en-thusiasm and innocence that can change our world for the better.

They had made a request for notebooks as these children were in dire need of them and also for rain coats as they walk long distanc-es to get to school. We were very happy to meet these needs with the notebooks donated to us by a well wisher and also to supply raincoats to a section of the children with the funds donated by our generous Rotarians. The joy on the faces of the children and the eagerness to learn was so inspiring that we promised to help the rest of the children with raincoats too. Each raincoat costs us Rs 100/-, and we request Rotarians who are interested to please support the raincoat project of the youth Services committee.

Protecting and Nurturing Future of IndiaAdolescence :

The most diffi cult phase

Adolescence is a diffi cult period in the lives of a girl child. It is a time when they are experiencing all kinds of new changes in their bodies and in their feelings. They often feel misunderstood as they are struggling to leave behind their childhood and become adults.

Why does my stomach hurt? Why do I get headache? I have been losing hair...why is that? The questions started slowly, shyly and then one by one, each one wanted to get a concern answered.

Girls from ages 13 yrs to 16 yrs took advantage of Dr Uma Satish and Dr Sangamitra’s presence at the Kamalabai Trust School premises. As Dr Sanghmitra took the girls through the adolescence journey of physiological, psychological and social change that hap-pens, the girls listened to her talk with rapt attention and a few giggles. The topics that were covered helped the girls understand what was happening to them such as the morphological changes that occur like height, weight, contour of body, the onset of men-struation along with the why and how of it.

The doctor stressed on the need for hygiene during menstruation and the need to eat nutritious food and to avoid junk food for healthy overall growth. The cause for many new emotions like anger,

continued on Page 2 >>

RCB meets every Monday at 7pm. Issue 6 August 11th, 2014

Pride of WorkmanshipMeet our Awardee Crafts

Presentations on Friday 15th August

Channapatna toys

Channapatna is called Toy Town of Kar-nataka, and has been making lacware toys ever since Tipu Sultan brought in artisans from Persia in the 18th century.

Toys are made with natural dyes, ren-dering them 100% safe for children, and has earned global protection through a Geographical Indication (GI) tag under the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Kasuti EmbroidEry

The history of Kasuti dates back to the Chalukya period.

Women courtiers in the Mysore King-dom in the 17th century were expected to be adept in 64 arts, with Kasuti being one of them. Sarees embroidered with Kasuti were expected to be part of the bridal trous-seau and the Chandrakali saree was of prime importance.

This handicraft is GI tagged under WTO.mysorE painting

Painting in Karnataka has an illustrious history, tracing its origins to Ajanta times.

Mysore painting evolved during the reign of the Vijayanagar Kings (1336-1565 AD) and are known for their elegance, muted colours and attention to detail, with most themes based on Hindu mythology.

This handicraft is GI tagged under WTO.tErraCotta JEwEllEry

Terracotta female figurines were uncov-ered by archaeologists in excavations of Mohenjodaro (3000-1500 BC). Since then usage was found in Ancient Mesopotamia,

Ancient Greece, China and West Africa.Long since then its uses include, vessels,

bricks, surface embellishments, sculpture and even jewellery.

ganJifa art

Ganjifa is a card game that originated in Persia and became popular in India under the Mughal emperors in the 16th century.

Ganjifa is now known more for the art work on the cards than the game itself.Cards made for royalty were inlaid with pre-cious stones and were also made of ivory.

In Mysore, this was known as Chedd. This handicraft is GI tagged under WTO.

mysorE wood inlay

Jayachamaraja Wodeyar Bahadur was the 25th and the last Maharaja of the princely state of Mysore.

During his reign, many crafts flourished, including ivory inlay in rosewood. Later ivo-ry was substituted by woods of different co-lours. Even now, an estimated 4000 people in Mysore are involved in this craft, that is GI tagged under WTO.

papEr with Cloth bags

Under the auspices of Seva-in-Action, a skill development unit was set up to rehabil-itate differently abled people.

Crafts persued by these people included mats, stationery items, candles and greet-ing cards. They also make paper bags that are aesthetically outer covered with cloth, to make a eco friendly alternative.

Rtn.Dinyar Langrana

Adolescencecontinued from page 1frustration, volatile behaviour etc along with the social responsibility that comes with adulthood was explained by the doctor.

Adolescence is also a phase of decision making and responsibility with regards to their academics and future choice of voca-tion. Taking guidance from the right people is important at this stage in life. The girls were made aware of what constitutes sex-ual abuse, rape, unwanted touch and the basics of diseases like HIV and STD.

The good doctor urged the girls to include religion in their lives as it gives peace and encouraged them to confide in their moth-ers or teachers with their doubts or con-cerns as this could be a confusing and vul-nerable phase as well.

After the presentation, Dr Uma Satish and Dr Sanghmitra answered many queries ranging from cancer to backache, late men-arche etc. The teachers also participated in this session and asked several questions. It was heartening to see that the class teach-ers knew the individual problems of their students and were trying to understand how she could be treated.

Later, 250 girls were screened for anemia by the doctors. Getting over the initial fear and hesitation, the girls took this as a good opportunity to get their individual doubts answered. Iron capsules were disbursed to many girls who were found to be anemic and a few girls were advised blood tests and samples were collected there itself.

At the end of a fruitful afternoon, the girl students and their teachers were very thankful to the Rotary Club of Bangalore. As they say, it is important to have a healthy foundation to have a strong building. And getting the right guidance in the formative years will help shape many lives.Ann.Tasneem Jiruwala with inputs from

Rtn.Dr.Sangamitra Gopal

Hungry for Knowledgecontinued from page 1

The Jyoti and Kiran program have teach-ing modules where children are taught life skills, art, English, Maths and basic Scienc-es. These modules were very simple and can be easily replicated.

The children who have been adopted under the Jyoti and Kiran project are per-forming extremely well and and the parents want all the children of the Corporation Schools adopted under this scheme.

We were joined today by Rtns Shivaprasad Krishnan, Ute Laser, Dr Paramesh as well as Ms Sudha (Headmis-tress ) and Ms Premila (Teacher) of our Ro-

tary Bangalore Vidyalaya.The Director of the Vidya Niketan School,

Ms Hansa Vithani has agreed to conduct a half day training workshop for the teachers of our Rotary Bangalore Vidyalaya soon.

After being with the children and the teachers of the Corporation School I sin-cerely believe that the children and teach-ers of our Rotary School are truly blessed in terms of facilities and infrastructure and with further training from Vidyaniketan will have a positive impact on the performance of the students and teachers of our Rotary Bangalore Vidyalaya.

Rtn.Elizabeth Cherian

The Beginning is the Most Important PartOn 11 th August, 2014, at RCB, it was

completely of, for and by Rotarians – all for Rotary! An august meeting indeed, from start to end, spelling out the plans for the year in progress, paving new paths, re-tracing and refirming old ones, involving all avenues of service, through impressive presentations made by members invested with the responsibility of taking the club and Rotary to greater heights. Like Plato said – “The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

Club sErviCEs

Rtn. Shailesh Rudra, Director, Club Ser-vices and President elect, invited members heading committees to present their plans :

Rtn. Girish Ramanathan, Chairman, Fel-lowship committee briefed members on the plans to improve interaction among mem-bers. Independence day will be celebrated with a difference. Plans are afoot for Dasara and Deepavali fests with International fla-vor. The motto was – May the hinges of Ro-tary never rust!

Rtn. Musten Jiruwalla, Chairman, Com-munications committee with Rtn. Sandhya Mendonca, Co-chair, to give his vision for the year to spread the good word of Rotary through digital media like email and inter-net and social media networks. There is a plan to make a dossier of enumerating all projects with an EQ factor for presentation outside the Rotary world.

Rtn. Ranga Rao, Chairman, Public Im-age committee, promises to give RCB a brand new look and more useful publicity, through media presence at all projects and major events of the club. Liberal usage of mementoes, memorabilia, carrying the es-sence of the 4-way test will be put in place.

Rtn. Dr. Pradeep. M. Rao, Chairman, Membership development committee, presented his plans to see that member-ship increases from the stagnant number it has been at, since 25 years, ever since he joined, at 1.2 million. RCB’s member-ship has hovered around 210, plus/minus a score, and that needs to increase. The unique ‘Buddies Nite’, planned for 25th Au-gust, intends to introduce friends to RCB. Plans for membership retention are also underway, which is a vital area of concern.

Rtn. Sundeep Gupta, Sergeant-at-arms, gave an overview of the unique RPL (Ro-tary Premier League) concept started this year, slotting members into teams and get-ting leaders to encourage more, and better participation in club activities.

Rtn. Raghunathan, Chairman, Pro-grammes committee, said that every effort is being made to improve Monday meeting content, by choosing good speakers and he requested members to actively participate, by suggesting speakers. The topics that are

contemporary and of interest to Rotary are being worked upon, he said.

Community sErviCEs

Rtn. Sukhen Padmanabha, Director, Com-munity services committee, made a sincere appeal to members to actively participate in Rotary’s prime arena of service to mankind, through which it makes a meaningful im-pact in the world.

Rtn. Manjunath Aneikar, Chairman, Com-munity services, said that the concentration will be on Malur and RBV schools, Shan-kara Library, Adult literacy and provision of clean environs in schools, which includes tree planting. Under medical services, Rtn.Drs. Sangamitra, Gertrude will spearhead cancer screening, detection of osteoporo-sis and blood donation.

Rtns. Sridhar Chari and Subramanian. B. were mentioned for their yeomen service rendered towards the OSAAT project, which has seen the start of several schools in ru-ral areas, beginning a new era in education, sanitation and so much else that was defi-cient. A truly noble venture, that has seen many helping hands, both from within the club, as well as overseas. The most notable name here is Rtn. Arjun Menda.

Rtns. T.V Raghunath and Mohan Gurjar were mentioned for their involvement with the ‘TEACH’ programme and infrastructure improvement initiatives at RBV, respective-ly. Schools appear to be the starting point of everything and no stone is being left un-turned in this effort to see that education, sanitation, clean drinking water and protec-tion of the environment through tree plant-ing and adoption, get top priority. Plans are in place for the Dialysis Centre, Rotary At-tavar Hospital, to be able to deliver more to the community.

PDG Rtn. Prabhashankar.K.N, spoke about how the Rotary BMST intends to link blood banks across the country, in an effort to create a bone marrow transplant registry, so as to make availability of donors, match-es easy. Also, there is a plan to increase blood donor numbers to a million, he said.

voCational sErviCEs

Under Director Rtn. Dinyar Langrana, and Chair Rtn. Gowri Oza, vocational training will emphasise on self reliance and liveli-hood earning, imparted through skills train-ing, through newer and innovative means. They intend to cover areas hitherto uncov-ered in this sphere, exploring new voca-tions through the year. The ‘Pride of Work-manship Award’ will be their first venture on

15/8/14, which will see the recognition of artisans who keep our culture alive. That apart, the standard award events will be persisted with, recognizing people who have contributed and made a difference to society. A new award is being planned for sports as a category.

Rtn. Prabhu Subramaniam, will guide ca-reers and training, with the hope of improv-ing employability. Promoting the 4-way test is on the agenda. In honour of the 80th year of RCB, it is planned to honour personal-ities who made Bangalore better through their chosen vocations. Classification talks every Monday is on the cards.

intErnational sErviCEs

Rtn. Zarir Batha, Director, International ser-vices and Rtn.Suresh Narayanan, along with co-chairs Rtns. Omana.M. and Vineetha C, laid out the plans for the year, going through Friendship exchange visits to overseas clubs, student programmes, host-ing of the GSE team and the new event of ‘Consuls Nite’. The intention is to make RCB a 100% PHF club. Contributions to the Foundation will see several fund raisers be-ing planned. The pride of RCB- Kala for Vidya will continue to make its artistic con-tribution this year too, he said.

youth sErviCEs

Director Youth services committee, Rtn. Elizabeth Cherian made an impassioned plea along with Rtn. Manoj Nair, Chairper-son, to harness youth power to help the ide-als of Rotary. They enumerated very well how they intend to rope in young people to contribute to the community, through great-er influence over Rotaract and Interact clubs, under RCB. They have a plan to in-volve them in blood donation, cleanliness drives as well as the most pressing need of the hour – management of E-waste. There is an initiative to engage them in education as well. RYLA will be planned in newer ways to improve participation and outcome.

With that, the impressive line-up of plans came to a close.It is rightly said – to be prepared, is half the victory ! For every-body it meant that – “Success is never an accident. It is always the result of a com-mitment to excellence, intelligent planning and focused effort.” (Paul.J.Myers). There was abundant proof of teamwork, individual efforts, organisational objectives, common goals and means of making common peo-ple accomplish uncommon goals! An auspi-cious beginning, to say the least.

Ann. Dr. Chandrika Rao

Proceedings of the meetingProceedings of the 6th meeting of the

80th Rotary year of the Rotary Club of Bangalore held on Monday, the 11th Au-gust 2014 at Rotary House of Friendship, Lavelle Road, Bangalore.• Rtn. Sundeep Gupta, Sgt-at-arms con-

ducted the lucky draw for the Rotarians who signed in before 7.20pm and this was won by Rtn. Sitalakshmi Chinnappa.

• The meeting was called to order by the President Rtn Ramkumar Seshu.

• President Ramkumar Seshu, welcomed Rotarians, Anns, Innerwheel Club mem-bers, Rotaractors and invitees for the meeting.

announCEmEnts

• Rtn. A.N.Manjunath, launched the Tree Plantation drive for the 80th year celebra-tion and the poster was released by Rtn PP.K.Shankar. Rtn. Manjunath said that 239 trees will be planted in Rotary Ban-galore Vidlaya and Malur Schools in the name of Rotarians and requested each member to a contribute sum of Rs. 600/- for each tree. He said that Rtn PP. K.Vi-jaya Kumar has donated 239 plants.

• Rtn. Dr.Gergrude D’Souza, announced about the Adolescent awareness camp held at Kamalabai Girl High School and Eye screening program to be held at Ro-tary Bangalore Vidyalaya.

• Rtn. Ute Peter, announced about the pro-gram held at Kempapura Govt. School and distributed Rain coats to school chil-dren.

• Asst. Gov. Rtn. N.S.Srinivasa Murthy, announced about the TEACH program launched this year and requested all the members to participate in this program.

• Rtn. Dinyar Langrana briefed the mem-bers about the program on Friday 15th Aug. 2014 about the Independence Day Celebration and Pride of Workmanship Award.

• Rtn. Sharmila Mukherjee, gave the Vo-cational Talk.

• Secretary Rtn. Vivek Prabhu, congratulat-ed Rtn. N.Nityananda on being appointed to the Indian Accounting Standards and IFRS committee, New Delhi as mentioned

in Budget and Chairman of Banking, Fi-nance and Corporate Market Committee of FKCCI.

• Rtn. Secy. Vivek Prabhu, announced the Birthday and Wedding Anniversary for the week and scheduled of committee and weekly meetings.

program for thE day • President requested all the Board of Di-

rectors to come onto the dais.• President requested each Director to

present their plans for the year 2014-15. • Rtn. Shailesh Rudra, on Club Service,

Rtn Sukhen Padmanabha on Community Service, Rtn. Dinyar F.Langrna on Voca-tional Service, Rtn Zarir K.Batha, on In-ternational Service and Rtn Dr.Elizabeth Cherian Paramaesh on Youth Service.

• All the directors gave the power point pre-sentation and introduced their chair and co-chair respectively.

• President thanked all the Board mem-bers, Chair and Co-Chair for their won-derful presentations and then adjourned the meeting for fellowship and lite dinner.

Birthdays16th Aug Rtn. Dilip M Shah20th Aug Rtn. Rajeswara Rao Cherla20th Aug Rtn. Purnima Rangnath22nd Aug Rtn. Shyam Ramadhyani23rd Aug Rtn. Nalini Nanjundayya

Spouses’ Birthdays15th Aug Ann. Priti Malpani

19th Aug Ann.Parvathy Subramaniam A.S.

22nd Aug Ann. Swapna Mankani23rd Aug Ann. Revathy Ananthnarayan

Wedding Anniversary

17th Aug Rtn. Prabhashankar and Ann.Mukta

17th Aug Rtn.Sunil Kumar and Ann. Dr.Sudha

18th Aug Rtn.Dutt RC. and Ann. Sudha

20th Aug Rtn.Rosa Pamamel and Mr. Solomon

20th Aug Rtn.Manoj Nair and Ann Usha

21st Aug Rtn. Sreenivasa Setty and Ann. Kusuma

22nd Aug Rtn. G.A.Shreedhar and Ann. Annapurna

22nd Aug Rtn. Nagendra K L & Ann.Geetha

23rd Aug Rtn. Radhakrishna G.V. and Ann. Raji

24th Rtn.K.Hari and Ann. Raji

Attendance 11th August 2014Total Membership 239Members Present 78Members Exempted 58

Contribution to Community ChestBrought Forward Rs.14000Ann. Takako Koboki Rs.500Total Rs.14500

Communication CommitteeJt.Secretary Rtn.Rohidas BhatChair Rtn.Musten JiruwalaCo-Chairs Rtn.Kalpana Udaykumar

Rtn.Jagadish DVRtn.Sandhya Mendonca

EditorAugust 2014 Ann Dr.Chandrika Rao

Next Two Weeks’ Programme15th August 2014 (Friday)

Independence Day Celebration, Flag hoisting at 10.30 a.m. at Rotary House of Friendship and presentation of Pride of workmanship award followed by Lunch.

18th August, 2014NO MEETING

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