Rotary Club of B'lore

Empowering under privileged children

In its celebration of Platinum Jubilee year, the Rotary Club of Bangalore in partnership with Menda Education Trust, a philanthropic NGO is organizing a fund-raising event - a dance performance by Rukmini Vijayakumar. The performance will be held at Chowdaiah Memorial Hall on Saturday, May 9, 2009 at 06:15 PM. Ms. Rukmini Vijayakumar, a danseuse who is proficient and well qualified in both Bharatanatyam and Western Classical Ballet and Parshwanath S Upadhye, an internationally acclaimed dancer, will present 'Megham', a thematic presentation of the panorama of monsoon. The event is being staged to help raise funds for the Rotary Menda Education foundation that provides scholarships to underprivileged children. Applications are invited from schools to recommend their deserving students who qualify for and are eligible for these scholarships. Donor passes are available at Rs. 400/-. For further details, contact 22120317.

Rtn Vijayakumar, President Rotary Club of Bangalore said, "A screening committee will shortlist the candidates who are awarded these scholarships. The event is expected to add another 6 to 8 lakhs to the corpus that will help expand the scholarships reach 75 students with Rs 6000/- each to meet fees and related expenses. The Foundation hopes to expand until we can provide 250 such scholarships to needy students. by covering the students from 5th to 10th std." He further added, "From a small beginning a few years ago, the Foundation has now over 40 lakhs of rupees in a corpus and the interest generated, supports 55 children with scholarships of Rs.5000/-each last year." In a few year, he hopes to reach a target of Rs 1 crore.

The Rotary also runs a school at Nagadevanahalli in the outskirts of Bangalore with 800 children with an investment of Rs.1.30 cr, in addition to a TTK Blood Bank at Thippasandra which supplies 25,000 blood collections to all the institutes and hospitals. Future plans include starting of a stem cell research at TTK in a short while.

The Rotary also supports a Government school at Sakalwara on Anekal road. This is probably the only government school to have a water harvesting facility, which is one of its kind in government schools. Plans for the school include a tie-up with TIDALDATA Inc., California, to distribute hand held, remarkably cheap e-pods to the children that carry their complete syllabus in several languages that can guide, teach, educate, and rapidly enhance their learning skills and establish credibility in rural education programmes, achieving objectives at affordable costs. The e-device is voice-enabled and helps to compensate the teacher-student ratio, which is seen to be very high in government schools.

President Rtn.Vijay Kumar said it will be launched during the month of June.

"The Menda Trust allows people to contribute and be engaged in development where funds are not simply handed out but given in the form of a loan. We are extremely grateful for joining hands with the Rotary Club of Bangalore in this fund raising campaign to assist the underprivileged children in education," said Rtn Arjun Menda, Chairman of Menda Foundation. This commendable community initiative is meant to encourage and motivate 'fortunate' Indians to 'stand up and act' to transform the lives of underprivileged children and contribute to nation building in the process. The proceedings from the show would go towards providing stability and support to underprivileged children by guaranteeing schooling support through education from 5th to 10th standard.

Megham is a thematic presentation of the vista of monsoon through the medium of Bharata Nalyam. Modem dance, theatre and music.

Rukmini Vijayakumar holds a Vidwat in Bharatanatyam and a BFA degree from the Bostc Conservatory in Classical Ballet and Modern Dance. She has over 18 years of training in Bharatanatyam from Guru Padrnini Rao, Guru Narmada Rao and Guru Sundari Santhanam As a Bharatanatyam soloist, Rukrnini has danced in several National dance events, which includethe Festival at Khajuraho, the Kalidas Samaroha in Ujjain, the Natyanjali in Chidambaram, the Dasara Festival in Mysore, Uttarardh Utsav in Modhera Gujarat, the Winter performances in Chennai and the  Baadal Raag SamarohatBhopa!.
Parshwanath S Upadhye is a student of internationally acclaimed dancer duo, The Kirans. He has been learning bharatanatyam for the last 18 years and is one of the youngest A graded artists of Doordarshan. He has won 8 national awards at various youth festivals held at Amritsar, Delhi, Kolkata, etc. He is a recipient of CCKT and Human Resource development, Govt. of India scholarships. He has completed the Vidwat and Alankara exams.