District Governor - Rtn. Manjoo Phadke
Dec-2023
Editor - Rtn. Madhur Dolare

"Wheels of Empowerment: Rotary's Gift of Sports Wheelchairs to Maharashtra Wheelchair Cricket Team" Back

The President and Secretary of the Maharashtra Wheelchair Cricket Association approached RCP Central for sports wheelchairs for their cricket team. These young men love the game of cricket as does our entire nation, but they have physical challenges in pursuing their dream, being wheelchair-bound. They were making do with ordinary wheelchairs or plain chairs sometimes, on which they sat and played. They took part in the National Wheelchair Cricket Tournament at Raipur, Chattisgarh and last year and played on borrowed wheelchairs. Ever since then they have been approaching various charitable institutions for these special wheelchairs since the cost was beyond their means. While there was scepticism to begin with, this turned out to be the first project that was fully funded during the Fundraising Meeting. This was a truly participative project, wherein not only did twelve members contribute Rs. 40,000/- each, six of them were present for handing over the wheelchairs. Some of the cricketers could not hold back their tears of Joy, and it was extremely heartwarming to see that we had indeed, ‘Created Hope in the World’. A number of Corporators and local social workers also attended the function, where we performed a small puja of the wheelchairs before handing them over to the team. They then played a 5-over per side game as demonstration of their skills. As it happened this became a good Public Image Project too, the news having been published in at least five local newspapers.