Dear Rotary Leaders
The Moving Force
There has to be a force to move mountains to make things happen. Even to do good! Remember the old phrase, “If the mountain does not come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must to the mountain?” Taking a cue from this phrase, the Rotarians of RC Pune Central, RI District 3131, decided to move vaccines to the public and not wait for them to come to the vaccination centres. Pune, the central hub of vaccine manufacture in India, has been in the news for the past several months. Probably, people in India and elsewhere are waiting for more vaccines to be produced here and to be shipped to their States and Countries. These are difficult times for people everywhere and those in Pune are no exception. Rotarians here were moved into action and decided that the population must the vaccinated to prevent Covid from spreading.
The vaccination drive needed to pick up speed with more vaccines being made available, but some reports suggest that wastages take place because of hesitancy among the people to go to a centre and get the jab.The statistics of vaccination released in the press a couple of days ago shows that only 34% of the Indians above the age of 45 and just 42% of those above the age of 60 got their first jab. Only 4.5% of the total adult population of India, which is above 90 crores, got both the doses and only 16% of the total adult population received at least one jab. About 5% of the population in the age group of 18 to 44 years have got their first shot.
With the second wave of Covid showing no sign of abating soon, it was imperative that people must get vaccinated, since all other restrictions like lockdown, social distancing and wearing masks can only do so much and not give the person the level of protection needed from the virus. The project of RC Pune Central, aptly name VACCINE ON WHEELS is a mobile vaccination clinic with doctors, qualified nurses and IT professionals on board. On-site registration is handled by the IT volunteers. There is a cold-chain and kits to monitor if any adverse event happens after vaccination.
The Mayor of Pune and the Municipal Commissioner of Pune have entered into a MOU with the club and organisations are generous with their CSR contributions. There are 5 mobile vaccination clinics functioning now in Pune area and already over 5,000 people have been vaccinated from the time the wheels started rolling on May 17, 2021. Seeing the success of this, the Corporations in Mumbai, Nagpur, Cuttack, Bhubaneshwar, Puri and Hyderabad have also shown their interest in partnering with Rotary to get things moving.
One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognise a problem before it becomes an emergency. Rotary leaders around the world have been proactive in offering solutions and help when it comes to saving precious lives of people and people know that we are a different kind of organisation and that extends to the way we talk about our work. Rotarians know that they have a voice and it must be used for the voiceless people. Otherwise, there is no need for a voice within us. Raise your voice, make people take the jab. This is your story and we have only just begun writing about it.
