Rotary Club unveils projects, donates blood, artificial limbs

The 9110 District Governor, Rotary International, Dr. Wale Ogunbadejo, has re-affirmed the position of Rotary Club of Lagos Palmgrove Estate as number one in the district in terms of philanthropy and project outreaches. He, however, advised the club to do more by donating handsomely into the fund earmarked to kick polio out of the world.

He was optimistic that no new case of polio has been reported this year, adding that if the status quo remains till next year, Nigeria would soon be declared polio-free in the world.

He urged the club to key into his vision of identifying poorly managed primary health centres in their area, with a view to equipping them to be more effective and save people from travelling far to receive medication, which had resulted in the loss of lives of many patients.

President of the club, Rotn. Atul Kshetry, disclosed that in addition to the club intending to have at least 150 members, other projects lined up for the year include blood donation camps with a target of donating 1,000 pints of blood to the Lagos State Blood Transfusion Service, provision of artificial limbs to beneficiaries, provision of laboratory materials to 50 government primary and secondary schools to conduct mathematics and science experiments, refurbishment of primary health centre, and vocational training among others.

During the District Governor’s visit, Mission for Vision 2017 to offer free cataract surgery to 1,500 underprivileged patients was launched at the instance of the Chair, Mission for Vision, Rotn. Tarun Sanghvi.

Already, more than 100 pints of blood have been donated by members of the club at the recent blood camp organised at the club’s secretariat in Palmgrove, Lagos. According to the in-coming president of the club, Rotn. Kamat Ravindra, who represented the president, the camp, which started in 2015, has been a major project of the club.

“We dedicate this camp to the late Rotary International President-elect, Rotn Samuel Owori, who just passed on. Before June 2018, we are targeting 1,000 pints of blood to be donated to the Lagos Blood bank. We have our partners, two Indian communities: Gujarati Samaj and Bhojpuri Pariwar, that have been very supportive and instrumental to make this camp a success,” he said.

He lauded the courage of five Nigerians who on their own volition saw the banner and came to make voluntary donation, which he termed as an achievement because it has been discovered that a lot of Nigerians were skeptical when it comes to blood donation.

Also, in continuation of its service to humanity service, beneficiaries went home smiling with dozens of artificial limbs to aid their movement, which were given to them free of cost, at a recent service project.

Kshetry said the club has been empowering beneficiaries with artificial limbs for the past 27 years, adding that 25 free artificial limbs are given out every month. “We give close to 400 free artificial limbs yearly and beneficiaries come from all parts of the country to Lagos because it is expensive to get one.”