umeed
Flagship School Project
Literacy has been the focus throughout the life of Centenary President Rtn Purnendu Roychowdhury in Rotary. As part of the Centenary Vision, a lifelong passion and a firm belief that one of the tools to fight poverty is education, his plan for 4 schools was implemented under the Centenary year by the Centenary Committee.
Construction of a School Building at EPN HSP Rotary Centenary School
Father Francis Laborde was born in Paris on 28th February, 1927. He spent a lifetime in the slums of Howrah serving the poor and the underprivileged and established a school in Howrah. When he approached President Purnendu Roychowdhury with a request to demolish and build a new Bridge School in a dilapidated and dangerously leaking old school, we could not say no to him. With the help of our German and Dutch friends and a special initiative by Rtn. Peter Walter and Rtn. Frederique Vogel a special team of PP Saumen Ray, Rtn. Ashok Kumar Basu (AB4) and Purnendu Roychowdhury worked diligently for months to get one and only approval in India for a TRF Pilot project for constructing a Simple School under Global Grant. The children, on graduation from this Bridge school, will automatically be placed in a primary school run by Howrah South Point.
Centenary Wing of UCHCHAL PROBAHO SCHOOL at Bishnupur
This School, which has been supported by us for the past 20 years, appealed to Centenary President for a fund of Rs.7 lacs to build a new wing for additional classes. Thanks to the overwhelming support of our donors and members, we were successful in donating Rs.10,50,OOO/- and the school was inaugurated on 28th June 2020 by DG Ajay Agarwal which happens to be a first visit by a sitting DG after many years. The club is especially indebted to PP Nandita Sen, Mr. Hemant Bangur, Mrs. Parveen Hirji and Ms. Nargis Hirji for extending their financial support to this project.
Centenary School building at Chintan in Baramangwa, Dist-Darjeeling.
In January ’19, a group of trekkers and sports enthusiasts approached Rtn.Purnendu Roychowdhury for a NGO that they run in the hills of Darjeeling District for Gorkha and Lepcha tribal children whose parents are farm labourers, mechanics or doing odd jobs. There was a growing disparity as most of those having higher standards of living were joining the Indian or British Armed Forces and those unable to join the Armed Forces were doing menial jobs or odd jobs to sustain their families. The NGO wanted to get rid of this disparity by educating the tribal children of these underprivileged sections. They approached Rotary Club of Calcutta for building a proper school as they were operating from a shanty school building without proper facilities or toilets.
In February 2019 a fact- finding mission by a dedicated team of Rotarians visited the site and did an assessment study. After discussions, the project was approved. Rtn. Subrata Basu drew up the agreement to be signed between the parties and we started approaching donors. As usual Rtn. Peter walter who is currently DRFC in his district in Germany came to our aid. Together with Peter, Rtn. Gerhard Maier actively campaigned for our cause and collected Rs.22 Iacs from RC Buchloe, RC Mainburg, RC Vessenhorn, RC Kaufbeuren-CA and RC Viersen-SchwaIm-Nette. We are also thankful for financial assistance of Rtn. Kanak Dutt, Rtn. Indrajit Ganguly, Rtn.Ranjita Majumdar (RCCC) and Mr. Asim Debnath from New York and the members for their constant support and assistance. The school will be completed in the following Rotary year.
A construction of a Boarding School was started as a Dream Project of Centenary Chair PP Saumen Ray and fully supported by PP Haladhar Dey and Rtn. Subrata Basu who are very involved in this project. The boarding section was completed successfully in the month of May 2020. We are indebted to PP Vikram Somany for financially supporting this cause fully and wholeheartedly.
