Chris & Reyna Share their Rotary Service Adventure

Upon arrival in India on February 15, 2014 Christopher and Reyna happened to run into Rotary International Director for India P.T. Prabakar whom they had the pleasure of dining with in Evanston the month before.  Unbeknownst to Christopher and Reyna they were staying at the location of the RI District 3010 District Conference, the J.W. Marriott in New Delhi.  Although they had plans to travel to Mumbai that afternoon RID P.T. invited them as guest of the District 3010 Conference.  Christopher and Reyna enjoyed the District Conference, which had attendance of about 2,500 for the Saturday activities. 

Christopher and Reyna traveled to Mumbai that evening to meet up with the NID Team from the United States, which were sixteen Rotarians and Non-Rotarians. On Sunday the team visited Mother Teresa’s Orphanage in Mumbai to deliver clothing and bedding brought by the team.  While in Mumbai Christopher and Reyna met with two Rotarians from Mumbai whom they have been working with on a Global Grant to provide Cataract Surgery to the under privileged in Mumbai. It was exactly what Rotary fosters, fellowship and a connection to people from around the world .  Christopher had only communicated via email with Girish Mittal from the Mumbai Borivali East Rotary Club.  Girish and a fellow Rotarian met Christopher and Reyna for dinner and fellowship while they were in Mumbai. 

Upon departing Mumbai Christopher and Reyna traveled to Agra India, the home of the Taj Mahal. After a couple of days in Agra Christopher and Reyna were the guest of Kundara Central Rotary Club in Kerala, India, which is located at the southern tip of India.  While in Kundara they were able to see the current project in action, 200 sewing machines for women in Kundara, which will provide a marketable skill for the women to earn money for their family.  There were more than 2,000 applicants for the project but the project was written for 200 machines leaving huge opportunities for expansion of the project in the year to come to provide a sustainable project through the Rotary Foundation. Additionally, while in Kundara Christopher and Reyna visited families and beneficiaries of two prior projects that were completed by the Arlington Sunrise Rotary Club providing milk cows to families to allow them a source of revenue.  Arlington Sunrise completed the cow projects with Kundara in 2011 and 2013 and the Sewing Machines in 2014. Christopher is planning on increasing the number of sewing machines for next year and invites any club wanting to participate in an international project to contact him.

After attending a special Kundara Central Rotary meeting on Friday, Christopher and Reyna returned to New Delhi for preparation of the National Immunization Day.  While at the meeting in Kundara, the Rotarians learned that Christopher and Reyna’s daughter Olivia Rose was turning 14 months on that day they presented them with a cake and song in celebration of Olivia turning 14 months.  Upon return from Kundara they were invited to a private dinner with PRIP D.K. Lee, PRID and Foundation Trustee Elect Sushil Gupta, and 3010 DG Vinod, which was a treat for Christopher and Reyna to fellowship with Rotarians. Christopher has noted that were it not for Rotary, this opportunity would have never been available.

On Sunday February 23, 2014 Christopher and Reyna departed with the US NID Team to immunize children in Ghaziabad, India.  This was Christopher’s seventh NID and Reyna’s first NID.  They arrived at the NID booth in Ghaziabad that morning and began immunizing children that arrived at the booth for the immunizations.  During the time there they immunized approximately 320 children and colored their pinky purple.  One of the notable immunizations that took place at the booth according to Reyna was a young boy about four years old came to the booth with a small jug to get oil and 10 rupees. He was holding the jug and money in one hand and walked up to get immunized.  He was sent to the store to get the oil by himself and came to the booth for his immunization.  Ghaziabad had been a difficult area to eradicate polio because of the dominant Muslim population in the area.  This has drastically changed over the past five years leading to immunizations and the elimination of polio in the area. On Monday Christopher and Reyna traveled back to Ghaziabad to complete a house-to-house immunizations to account for the children that did not or could not come to the immunization booths. 

After the house-to-house immunizations the NID Team returned to New Delhi and visited the World Health Organizations (“WHO”) to get a report of the results from the NID held on Sunday in India as a whole.  The WHO provided information that 170,000,000 children had been immunized on February 23, 2014, which as Christopher noted, was the anniversary of the first ever Rotary Club Meeting in 1905.  It was also a meaningful immunization for Christopher because it marked his tenth year anniversary in Rotary, which was started as a Non-Rotarian in 2004 after participating in an NID in Calcutta, India. 

Christopher and Reyna are scheduled to return to India on March 29^th and 30^th for the World Polio Summit in which the WHO will officially certify India as polio free as part of WHO South East Asia Region (“SEAR”). WHO SEAR has 11 Member States: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste. Because the last case of polio was January 13, 2011 WHO is reviewing the surveillance data collected over the past three years to provide the certification at the end of March.

Christopher and Reyna are available for Club Programs and can be reached via email at chris.mclucas@yahoo.com or via phone at 817-874-4372.