A GSE team under the guidance of leader Malte Stahnke from RID 1800 (Ostniedersachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt) visited the northernmost Indian district 3070 (Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu) from January 27th to February 24th. Their blog

>>> www.gse1800to3070.blogspot.de <<<

demonstrates the richness of the program. The return visit of the Indian partners will take place from May 21th to June 19th 2013.

Rotarians and Innerwheelians from RID 1880 and 1940 visited Indo-German project-cooperations in Mumbai, Indore and Kolkata from Mach 1st to 13th 2012. The group consisted of Isolde and Wolfgang Handt, Gundel and Peter Iblher, RC Nürnberg-Reichswald, i. e. IWC Nürnberg-St. Lorenz, and Lutz Donath, RC Ribnitz-Damgarten.

In Mumbai(01. - 06.03.) a Rotary sponsored photovoltaic facility supplying Amulakh Amichand High School with green energy was inaugurated. The RCs of Mumbai Sion, Bombay Uptown and Nürnberg-Reichswald cooperated here with Solarworld AG, Bonn. The solar energy facility for the supply of the school is the first of its kind all over the Metropolitan region of Mumbai, after all an agglomeration of more than 18 million inhabitants. With 10 kwp it covers around one third of the schools demand. Planning and installing took more than one year. Peter Iblher, RC Nürnberg-Reichswald, had found a generous sponsor of materials with Solar World AG who produces solar panels in Freiberg/Erzgebirge i. e in RID 1880. He organized the shipping to Mumbai’s container port Nava Sheva. The Mumbai Rotarians under the guidance of Dinesh Shah took care of technical planning and installing. Ri-Director Yash Pal Das inaugurated the plant. Teachers and students celebrated together with the Indian and German Rotarians with prayers, music, dances and speeches. As the clip attached proves the project was well observed by the local press. After further modification of the school to energy saving equipment the foundation council intends to turn the school completely over to photovoltaic energy supply.
The Mumbai Rotarians were extremely obliging hosts and organized a very diverse and friendly visitor program beside the project interaction. This working hand in hand is based on solid friendship.

>>newspaper cutting<<

600 km northeast of Mumbai RCs of RID 1880 participate in a project to reduce dangers of burnings for little children by open fire and hot liquids in poor households. The medical burns specialist Dr. Shobha Chamania of Choitram Hospital Indore is regionally responsible for the worldwide organization Interburns. She has to treat many cases of child burns. The children affected are often handicapped and stigmatized for life. She is therefore searching for measures to reduce risks in rural shanties. The German visitors visited diverse villages in the region of Indore (06. – 09.03.) where fitting models are tested. This is done with unburnable room dividers, solar lamps and light diffusors. The Rcs of Nürnberg-Fürth, Nürnberg-Reichswald and RID 1880 support this field research, the RC of Indore City takes care of reporting and auditing.
A further project in this region is concerned with winning technicians and engineers for Saxonian companies and colleges. While technicians on all levels of education get scarce in Germany many regions of India have an over demand of education i. e. an oversupply of people looking for technical jobs. The RC of Dresden-Blaues Wunder together with Saxonian industrial organizations and technical schools on one side and RCs of Indore and local colleges try to find a fair settlement between these interests. For this partner colleges and education partners are looked for in the two countries. A model procedure is being developed containing language training, traineeships, college courses, welcoming measures supposed to reduce the dominance of English speaking countries with Indians looking for technical jobs abroad. The preparing talks with institutions on both sides were promising.
Finally the RC of Nürnberg-Reichswald has decided to assist the RC of Indore City with dam construction in rural Barkheda to provide water during the dry season.
In Indore also the stay was embedded in a cordial Rotarian hospitality. Reba Majumdar was an indefatigable guide realizing every wish of the visistors.

Another 1500 km to the east the region of Kolkata (09. – 13.03) was the third station of the visit. The RCs of Budge Budge, Dum Dum, West- and Central Calcutta also were very generous hosts. They offered insights into the social situation of the metropolis that are normally inaccessible for foreigners. The fellowship highlight was the invitation to the Rotarian Holi celebration in which the whole RID 3291 participated.
Notwithstanding all economic dynamics the region has great social problems just at the door. 70 – 75 percent of the rural population and in the slums of the agglomeration are insufficiently educated, poor, many ill and without assistance. Der RC of Budge Budge under the guidance of PDG Chandramohan demonstrated how even smaller clubs take care of women empowerment, the education of street orphans and medical care for the poor. They even build and operate clinics themselves. Lutz Donath was so impressed that he recommended to his RC Ribnitz-Damgarten and its Danish partner club to sponsor male street orphans that otherwise would have to leave their temporary home before they can finish their education.
The RC of Dum Dum also offers manifold social service. Within the delta of the Ganges stream, in the natural reserve of the Sunderbans, there are many islands the inhabitants of which are almost completely cut off from public social services. There is no medical supply either. The RC of Dum Dum therefore had the idea to send a simple boat with basic medical services into this region. This boat called Jibontari - ship of life visits some of the islands on a fixed schedule. The doctors on board offer basic medical treatment and bring emergency cases to clinics on the main land. The RC of Nürnberg-Reichswald and RID 1880 participate in this service by sponsoring operations and treatment of patients with cataracts.

Altogether mutual project development between Indian and German clubs was successful. Personal contacts were amicable and born by mutual confidence. The cooperation could therefore be intensified. Members of the Indian chapter of the Indo-German ICC, whom the visitors from Germany also met in Kolkata, offered to conduct common projects in third countries and to cooperate even in Germany, f. i. with a project for the introduction of electronic tablets in German schools.