1963-2013- Charter Members

Swarnanjali- Golden Jubliee 1963-2013- 50 years of Friendship and Service

Inner Wheel Club of Madras South – 50 + years of service and friendship- Written by Sita Laxminarayana

The Inner Wheel Club of Madras South is the very first Inner Wheel club in all of south India. It was set up in 1963, thanks to the vision and foresight of the late Rtn PDG S.R Govindarajan. The Charter President and Secretary were Mrs Annapoorni Veerappan and Mrs Sankari Das respectively.

We are fortunate that three of the Charter members are still active – May George, Ulagammai Veerappan and Sugandhi Muralidhar.

During the past 50+  years, we have carried out service projects worth Rs 50 lakhs benefiting more than 50,000 people. We have also helped set up an Inner Wheel club in the Rotary Club of Adyar. Three of our members have held high office. Suman Karpur has been President of the Inner Wheel Association for all of India, while Sita Laxminarayana and Shanti Kannan have served as Inner Wheel District Chairman.

Some highlights of our projects over the years:

• During the mid-1970s, we helped Beatitude Institute by constructing twin buildings in Madhavaram for centre to rehabilitate cured leprosy patients. The centre now houses some 75 persons. It also encourages self-help: the women earn money through useful occupations like envelope-making and bag-making.

• In 1995-96, the Egmore Eye Hospital renovated its children’s ward. We helped furnish the ward by providing cots, beds, cradles and other utility items. The dump yard for medical waste was cleaned and converted into a beautiful garden and play area for children. The child inmates and their parents enjoy the utility. This project was possible with the help of members Viji Jinadas,Vasanthi Mahendran and Manjula Pragasam.

• During the 1990s, in association with Mukti – an organization in Chennaithat provides artificial limbs and calipers free of charge to polio victims and victims of amputation – we helped children at the orthopedic centre of the Andhra Mahila Hospital, Adyar, with calipers. This project went on for six or seven years.

• Some modest service projects are ongoing – like donation of rice for the Birds Old Age Home and donation of milk for inmates of Goodwill Foundation, a placement centre for visually challenged girls. Many of our members provide reading services for blind students and writing services during examinations.

• We try to help cancer-affected children to overcome the trauma of the disease and recover quickly. We visit the pediatric ward of the Cancer Institute, Adyar, and give the children enjoyable outings – taking them to the beach, to the circus, to magic shows. We entertain them with cartoon films. We have donated curtains to the hospital and apparel and footwear to the kids. We have repaired the wash area of the ward, provided now sinks and taps and renovated the flooring.

• The building at the NKT National Boys High School, Triplicane, was in a poor shape. We gave the school a new look by organizing new tiled flooring, laboratories and a borewell. We also donated an Aquaguard machine to make available safe filtered drinking water for the children.

• We made a small effort toward the greening of Chennai, by planting avenue trees in the 3^rd  Seaward Road at Valmiki Nagar and also in Besant Nagar. The owners of the houses were more than happy to take  care of the trees. Those streets are unrecognizable now – with huge trees that provide shade and shelter and visual relief.

• We have organized three major fund-raising programmes. In 1999, when Mrs Nirmala Madhu was the president, we held a concert at Narada Gana Sabha, featuring four top Carnatic music vocalists – S Sowmya, Sudha Raghunathan, P.Unnikrishnan and Sanjay Subramaniam.

• Four years ago, during the presidentship of Mrs Anjana Vengatesh, we organized another musical programme – 40 years of SPB – at which the great singer performed, besides a few other music and film celebrities. Mrs Vijaya Thayanban of our club, who has excellent contacts with the film industry, was one of the architects of the show. We collected about Rs 11 lakhs, and used the money to help Vivekananda Vidyalaya with a laboratory, a play area and toilets. These amenities enabled the school to win affiliation to the CBSE system.

• In January 2010, in co-operation with the Rotary Club of Madras South, we organized Singing Stars, a grand fund-raising programme at the University of Madras auditorium. Movie stars Sarath Kumar and his wife Radhika were the chief guests. Several bright young singers regaled the audience. The programme enabled us to donate Rs.10 lakhs to the VHS Hospital at Taramani, to repair and rebuild its geriatric ward. Once this block is ready, club members will visit the inmates every week and offer them home-made food and magazines.

• In the year 1999-2000, we organized Bal Utsav 2000, a programme under which medical camps were held for 2,000 children of various orphanages in Chennai.

• High school education for young girls who can’t afford school has been a priority. Example: Tuition was financed for 25 children from Oorurkuppam. Many of them passed the exams.

• Another simple but useful service: organizing talks on health and hygiene for schoolgirls from standards 5 to 10. Dr. Sheela Mohan and  Dr. A Srivatsa gave these talks. They won the trust of the girls, who opened up and asked them many questions to clear doubts they had.

Fellowship has been strong throughout, with frequent picnics. Our members make a mark in music, and stand out at cultural programmes or contests, often winning the first prize. When Doordarshan started out in Chennai, the Inner Wheel Club of Madras South was prominent – a garbha dance at the inauguration by our members was telecast live. We are keen and sharp at quizzes too. Neela Govindaraj, Shanthi Kannan and Sita Laxminarayana have invariably won prizes in every quiz programme.

• On its 45th Charter Day (August 1, 2007), the club held a seminar on alternative systems of medicine. Dr Lalitha spoke on reiki and aromatherapy, Dr Mohana Krishnaswamy on music therapy. TamilNadu’s Minister for Health, Poongothai Aladi Aruna, presided. On the occasion of the 47th Charter Day, on August 18, 2008, a seminar was held on “Carnatic and Western music – yesterday, today and tomorrow.” Madurai G S Mani spoke about Carnatic music and beautifully demonstrated some ragas. Satish Chakravarthy, pianist and composer and son of Vijaya Thayanban, spoke about western music. Nalli Kuppuswamy presided.

• 0n October 15, 2008, a seminar was held on “The furious earth”. The former dean of Anna University, Mr. A.R. Santha Kumar, spoke on “Natural disasters” (earthquakes, tsunami, tornados, hurricanes and

volcanoes) and safe techniques for building construction.

\• The ISO programme of our club is very popular in the Inner Wheel fraternity. We have conducted two Antakshari contests, they have drawn many members from other clubs. Our members Kalarani, Bethica Das and Prabha Rajan have won prizes in cookery, fancy dress and other competitions. Many illustrious speakers have addressed our club on an array of subjects.

• Our club functions like a close-knit family. We enjoy serving society and each other’s company as well.

Faces of our Members- Past...who touched us at some point in our Club's life..in the last 50 years...

Gunawathy

Kavitha Shah

(Late) Praba Rajan

Sumana

Faces of Our Members- Present

Anjana Venkatesh

Athirai M S

Gayathri R

Indira Revi

Kalarani Sivasubramanian

Kusum Gupta

Manjula Pragasam

May George

Nadhini Nagoji

Neela Govindraj

Premala Prasad

Pushpam Kadavil

Rajalakshmi

Rooma

Sita

Shanthi Kannan

Suganthi Muralidaran

Umasree Raghunath

Vasanthi Mahenderan

Veena Kannan

Vijayalakshmi Thayanban

Vijayalakshmi

More to add......

Visit to ANEW- (Association for Non-traditional Employment for Women) - A story of Positive India!

ANEW (Association for Non-traditional Employment for Women) ….an avenue for women to survive in this society with non-traditional employability skills.   

When the whole world is focusing on the negative reasons like how women are deprived of equality, sexual harassment, abuse, domestic violence and harassment of various forms at work place and outside, there is this group of wonderful women with their supporting men folk who are silently doing the best to the society by training young women in employable skills.   The skills are very simple and volunteered but the impact is huge.  Home Nursing, Optometry, IT Skills and multi-media and accounting basics along with most interesting training on Motor vehicles for women to choose that as a career option. 

Interestingly this NGO is proud of creating abilities in woman who otherwise would have ended up in doing domestic chores or other less privileged jobs.  

The 16 year old saga of this endeavor was proudly shared with us when Inner Wheel Club of Madras South members visited ANEW on 3 Dec 2013, Tuesday.   With a very warm reception and also much warm sights of women getting trained in home nursing, IT skills, communication and art for hearing impaired along women zooming behind the wheel of autos and cars…create a sense of pride for being the society that is sensitive to actual grassroots needs.  

“Give a man a fish and feed for a day, or teach him fishing and feed for life”.   What better statement can fit to the unremitting willingness of the volunteers who are doing an amazing job of providing required training's and imparting confidence to face the society by these young women who would have otherwise been ravaged by the nuisances of the society in forms of abuse, financial inadequacy, dependency on someone to keep their kitchen fires burning. 

Today these young women are proudly taking care of themselves, their families and also rendering services back to the society in small ways within their means.  This is not a simple task.  There is lot of dedication, hard work, commitment and consistent contribution from volunteers and sponsors that keeps the momentum strong and successful.

As we crossed the rooms to see how they are actually doing this, we were greeted by soft innocent looks of the trainees and pride and confident smiles of the teachers.   The committee was beaming with joy of doing this and pride was visible in every story from the past they shared on how they evolved in this journey.  The story of hard work, crossing roadblocks on financial front, keeping up with the government regulations and compliance's just to ensure that every penny received is gone for sure for the cause. 

This is the key of success for this NGO which is run by dedicated individuals who make it happen.  Placements and providing secured job opportunities add feathers to their caps. 

In this era of media frenzies for showcasing time and again on negative news….such positive stories need to be shared and appreciated.  This will build the layer of respect, understanding and care to women that were once the lifeline of this country and its growth.     

This story should actually be telecasted in India Positive in channels like CNN IBN India which will motivate more and more people to get inspired and learn.

As long as we focus on the good cause, keep with the sincere efforts, organizations like ANEW will be change agents in the society, silently doing their work, focusing on the creation of Positive India …far away from crying with the challenges faced by women every single day. 

Each woman has a story to share, a pride of achievement, a mantra to success overcoming hurdles, creating adversities into valuable opportunities.   And I guess that is what is making ANEW….stronger and successful as they continue this journey of giving back to the society.

Long live the aspirations and success of this organization!  God Bless!

References:

Website: http://www.anewindia.org/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ANEWINDIA

Mazhalai Oli - featured in The Hindu Tambaram Edition on Diwali Day - November 2, 2013

District Conveynor Nallamai Ramanathan with District Chairman 2013-2014 Mallika Venkataramani and co-conveynor Kala Rajasekar with Past International President Kamala and Celebrity actor Shiva and Inner Wheel District Club of Madras South Sectretary Sandhya and Treasurer Umasree Raghunath looks on along with the children during the diwali celebrations on 26 October 2013, Saturday

Thank you Kala for making the South Club proud being a most cherished District Treasurer..You are a treasure to Inner Wheel Club of Madras South-     Kala Rajasekhar in action