Rotary Club Madras East
- Location : Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
- Community Served: Children and Adults
- Focus: Social Assistance (Hospitals/Schools/Vocational Centre)
Organization background
The Rotary Club of Madras East's (RCME)
objective is to identify projects that can have
a broad impact on the quality of life of poor people (in and around Chennai)
and mobilize funds to implement these projects. Most charitable initiatives
include the donation of equipment
to partner charitable organizations such as non-profit hospitals and
schools.
Examples of projects include sponsorship of a blood donor bus
to increase donation rates; sponsorship of a cancer screening
bus to promote cancer awareness & screening in marginalized
communities and the provision of critical care equipment to hospitals.
Project background
- 2018:
Aravind Eye Care System (AECS) is an eye care hospital focusing on providing
eyecare to rural populations.
At its 4 centers, AECS performs over 6000 eye surgeries every year
primarily to correct cataract and refractive errors.
Each of these centres required a new generation IOL master equipment
to be able to give quality vision in cataract surgery.
RCME helped mobilize funds to buy this equipment.
- 2019:
The Government Hospital for Thoracic Medicine (GHTM) in Tambaram Chennai has been
in operation since 1928.
The organization now has a total number of 776 beds.
In 2020, GHTM was designated as a COVID 19 treatment institution.
At that time GHTM had only 8 Intensive Care beds
and 1 ventilator
to treat patients with non TB respiratory diseases.
RCME tapped donors to fund
7 more ventilators and other
Critical Care equipment needed to treat seriously ill COVID patients.
- 2020:
RCME’s vocational center in Thoraipakkam, Chennai was founded to provide
access to vocational training to underprivileged youth in order to improve
their chances at securing employment.
In collaboration with local industry partners, RCME runs 6
certification courses in plumbing; pump repair and maintenance;
tailoring; software development; ERP software solutions
(specifically, Tally) and finance. Each course has the capacity to
admit 150 students over a 1 year period.
GKF contribtions to RCME
- 2018: Funding to purchase one IOL Master
- 2019: Funding to purchase ventilators for ICU
- 2020: Operating costs of Vocational Training Centre
- 2021: Funding for subsidized pediatric heart surgeries for 50 children with congenital heart defects