Our International Committee has been very pleased to send donations totalling £850 to the Rotary Club of Dhaka in Bangladesh to support two of its ongoing projects: its breast and cervical cancer screening project, and its prosthetic limbs and rehabilitation project. Both projects support underprivileged people in Bangladesh.
Earlier this year we agreed to a donation of £500 to the cancer screening project, which we have supported before. It has been good to receive regular updates on the project – for example, its most recent screening camp was held in Dohar, where 100 women were screened.
The prosthetic limb and rehabilitation project is a newer one for the Dhaka Club, in which it is working with the ‘Centre for the Rehabilitaion of the Paralysed’ (CRP) in Dhaka – a well-established and respected organisation in Bangladesh – to provide prosthetics and rehabilitation treatments for poor and needy individuals. CRP advise the Rotary Club of Dhaka of needy patients and they then undertake the work at discounted rates met by Rotary funding. One recent beneficiary of the programme is a young man in his 30s who lost both legs in a rail accident. With a young family to look after it was particularly important to – literally – get him “back on his feet”. CRP provided him with prosthetics and a programme of rehabilitation. In this case the Dhaka club also had to meet some of his accommodation costs as he lives outside the capital. However, the Dhaka club anticipates that other cases will be more straightforward. We look forward to hearing how our funds have been spent.
Picture: Two pictures from the Dohar cancer screening camp, and a video screenshot of the young man who received prosthetic limbs. Picture credit: Rotary Club of Dhaka (reproduced with permission).