Pamela V Brown is the President, Rotary club, Kappa and is an active participant in social causes colse to her heart.

She was in India recently and spend quality time with us and was amazed as well as please with the efforts we are putting in to help the poorest of the poor get a grip on their lives.

Sure, encouragemnt in any forms does give us the much needed motivation to do our job more diligently.

Here is what Pamela says about her experience in India. This article was publisehd in a prominent newspaper in her native city of Kaua'I, Hawaai, USA.

By Pamela Brown

It had been 22 years since I had last seen them and, save for a handful of recent emails, that long since I had last spoken with them. So the last thing I expected when I traveled to India in February to participate in Rotary International’s polio immunization program was to reacquaint with my cousin and his family, and to feel like I had reunited with parts of my own heart.

I watched with pride and amazement as my Kauai friends took to my cousin Kaveeta and her family as their own while we visited with them in New Delhi, and how the family welcomed all of us so warmly and completely.

But this proved to be more powerful than a simple family reunion. It was the beginning of what is fast becoming a powerful than a simple family reunion. It was the beginning of what is fast becoming a powerful and empowering partnership.

Kaveeta’s husband, Prem a retired Lt. Colonel from the Indian Army, is a man who likes to get things done. Realizing that relaxing in retirement mode was too slow of a speed for him, Prem formed a non-profit corporation with other retired military officers and began opening pre-schools in a poor urban village in Delhi.

With no running water, illegally and unreliably poached electricity and standing pools of raw sewage throughout the village, just making it through each day consumes most parents’ time, money and emotional resources. Prem’s balwaris- gardens of children- as the schools are called, offer safe, educational oases for village children.

Upon returning to Hawaii, a handful of us began collecting, sorting and shipping used clothing to Prem for the children. He said the kids have been excited to receive things chosen and sent with love from America. Shipping costs have proven to be high, though, so we are now reverting to simply sending checks. As Prem reminded me the other day, clothing is plentiful and – with U.S. currency –very affordable in India. Thinking with my media-conditioned American mind that our quality of clothing must be so much greater, I asked him if it was possible to get durable kids jeans and shoes there. He chuckled and gently reminded me that many of our “American “clothes are made there in India and
exported to us!

The latest news is that with a relatively modest check I sent, Prem has ordered water pipe to be laid in the village. I don’t yet know how many kilometers of pipe to be laid in the village. I don’t yet know how many kilometers of pipe my donation is buying but it’s apparently enough to warrant contractors coming out and doing the work, and I hear there is excitement among village residents.

We Kauai travelers were reminded how easy it is to make a difference in other people’s lives. We went to India to help with India’s National Polio Immunization Day- and we did, we enjoyed it and that’s another story. But we were unexpectedly, directly mainlined into an opportunity to positively affect the lives of children, who, with a little bit of help, have unlimited potential.