Indian Women Adopt Village

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31672, 7 May 1968, Page 2

Indian Women Adopt Village

The Bombay Inner Wheel Club, with a membership of 90 Rotarians’ wives, has adopted a nearby village of about 700 persons and has already provided a schoolhouse, running water and a medical clinic service. The women are now building the villagers a community hall.

Outlining the welfare project in Christchurch last evening, the district chairman of Inner Wheel (Mrs Purviz Horn! Banaji) said the next step was to put roads through the village and electric lighting in the streets. Later, electricity will be installed in the village huts. “When we asked the villagers what they wanted first we were delighted to hear them say a school,” Mr* Banaji said. “That showed they realised the importance of education.” The Inner Wheel members collected the money for the school house themselves, then arranged for teachers to take over. Next, they provided two taps for a village water supply, but when it came to providing a clinic service they turned to the Rotarians for help. ROTARY SUPPORT

“The men usually drag In their wives to help their projects, but this time we dragged them in. They liked the project, and got us a decent sum of money from an

International Rotary Foundation and matched the amount themselves,” she said. The villagers have cooperated with their benefactors and are delighted to have the clinic service, staffed by two women doctors, two nurses from a neighbouring hospital and two voluntary workers from the Bombay Inner Wheel Club. Free medicine is supplied by the Bombay Rotary Club. When the prefabricated village hall Is finished the clinic will have its first home there. In the meantime It is held In various private houses. Outside social workers are being sent into the village to organise activities for the children and the women’s club is planning to provide free milk for the children. Materials for the roadbuilding scheme will be supplied; the labour will be provided by the villagers.

“We are helping the villagers to raise their standard of living and to become selfsufficient. By the end of seven years we feel sure they will be able to stand on their own feet,” Mrs Banaji said. Although the village standard of living was low, there was no abject poverty, by Indian standards, she said. The men, and a few of the women, worked mainly in nearby mills and factories; FRIENDSHIP Before she took over the district chairmanship of Inner Wheel, Mrs Banaji was the organisation’s extension representative for all India. “Our motto Is ‘Friendship and Service’ and we put great emphasis on fostering friendship among the wives of Rotarians within the community, throughout the country and internationally,” she said. “We want to be friends with everyone." She would like to see the Inner Wheel movement started in Pakistan. Pakistani Rotarians who visited Bombay on business were welcomed by local Rotarians; Indian members who went to Karachi met the same kind of fraternity, she said. SCHOOL PRINCIPAL For many years Mrs Banaji was a teacher and later principal at Petit Parsi Girls’ Orphanage School in Bombay. This residential school was founded by a wealthy Parse* woman for Parsee girls. “In this school we always laid more importance on character-training than on teaching English and French,

for instance. Because this was a boarding school we had the opportunity to do so,” she said.

Though she no longer teaches. Mrs Banaji maintains her interest in education for girls. She is a member of the committees of management of the orphanage school and of her own old school, Girton High School, Bombay. Mr and Mrs Homi Banaji are visiting New Zealand at the invitation of the Pan Pacific and South-East Asia Women's Association. In Christchurch they are the guests of Mr and Mr* Gordon Troup, Fendalton.