Six
THE PROOF OF THE
PUDDING
IS IN THE
EATING
(cont'd - 3)
Two of the most notable and successful examples of this are provided by the Sunrise Kindergarten at Sungai Way which was started in 1988, and by the School Nutrition Programme which has been in progress for the past fifteen years. In both cases, the Club was able to act because of the help and enthusiasm of other individuals or bodies.
The School Nutrition Programme began in a somewhat ad hoc manner in 1975 when PJ Rotarians started to provide as many simple meals to needy schoolchildren 'as the Club could husband resources'. Three years later it became integrated into Rotary's World Community Project, which meant that it was open to support by sympathetic Rotary clubs in other countries. In the event, as a result of this, the Programme from 1978 onwards started receiving regular subventions from abroad, particularly from Japan and Australia. This enabled the programme to become more systematic and to expand. By 1980 some 1,000 school children in ten schools were receiving full cream milk and biscuits daily, although, dependent on the generosity of the suppliers, the quality at times left something to be desired. During the 1980s the quality of service improved in every respect. By 1991 the programme had become centred on three PJ primary schools on a regular basis and was being subsidized by a leading commercial firm to the tune of 5,000 ringgit a year.* The pioneer days of somewhat haphazard and uneven distribution had disappeared and the ingredients supplied were of better quality. However, although the Club has played a key role as the initiator, coordinator and fund raiser for the programme, it could never have succeeded without the full cooperation of the Ministry of Education and of the teachers directly involved, and of the commercial firms which have participated.
* i.e. the Sg. Way Chinese Primary School, the Tamil Vivekananda Primary School, and since 1990 the National Primary School of Sg. Way. The commercial firm involved is Jack Chia Enterprise, while Nestle's supply the milk at cheap rates.
The case of the Sunrise Kindergarten also involves the cooperation achieved between the PJ Rotarians on the one hand, and the Municipal authorities who made possible the allocation of the land, the Ministry of Education, and above all Rosemary Srinivasan, a very dedicated social worker, who started the original kindergarten in a wooden shack attached to the Hindu temple at the squatter area of Kg. Baiduri at Seri Setia, Sg. Way in 1985. However, the temple authorities after some time needed to take back the shack for their own purposes, which forced Mrs. Srinvasan to find an alternative spot, and some money in order to be able to continue with the school. She appealed to the PJ Rotary and also got help from a commercial firm (Western Digital, a multi-national electronic components manufacturer). The new kindergarten is now housed in a $15,000 building on land given by the PJ Municipality. It conducts its classes regularly and has a paternal eye kept on it by PJ Rotary.
However, the project of which the Club is proudest because up to date it has been the biggest and the most far-reaching is the establishment of the National Kidney Foundation. This was a most ambitious project, which also reflected the influence of the medical interest amongst the members of the PJ Rotary. The general purpose of the Foundation was to fill the very obvious gap in the medical facilities and treatment available in the country in the 1960s for those suffering from kidney diseases. At the time he scheme was launched, there were only two hospitals that had any such facilities at all - the General Hospital in Kuala Lumpur and the Assunta Hospital in PJ itself, and their facilities were 'woefully inadequate'. The aims of the Foundation though seemingly ambitious, were in reality basic though inevitably expensive. To begin with, it was reckoned that 1 million ringgit were required in order to equip the existing facilities at Kuala Lumpur and PJ adequately and in order to establish regional kidney units in the north and south of the Peninsula (i.e. at Penang and Malacca) as well as in both Sarawak and Sabah. The Foundation also planned to promote a public education programme in the disease and to provide funds for research and training. The initiative to launch the Foundation was taken by the Club and the Foundation's first Board of Managers had John Henderson, in his capacity as incumbent President of the Club, as its chairman, Ray Hardless as one of the vice-chairmen, Oscar Fernandez as its secretary, and George Wismer, the Director of Community Service, as a Board member. Once established, as it was in 1971, it made steady progress and played a major role in prompting the Government itself to set up the Institute of Urology and Neurology four years later. Rotarians from PJ no longer dominate the Foundation, but the Club still has its representation on the Foundation's Board.
The catalogue of services of a smaller but no less significant nature provided by the PJ Club during its first thirty years of existence is immense and would fill many pages. Suffice it here to say, that the Club - and the whole Rotary movement - is a completely voluntary organization, and that everything that it has done is the result of leisure hours willingly sacrificed and of personal donations willingly given. indeed, there is no way by which the fifty or so members who constitute the Club's membership could have done what they have done by merely making speeches to each other once a week over a good lunch.
Like all good parents, the Rotarians of PJ are able to boast the birth of three offspring to extend the Rotary ideal. The first Rotary club to be sired by the PJ Club was that of Shah Alam in 1980, followed by that of Subang in 1984. In both cases the midwife was P.P. Dr. Lim Chee Shin. The latest arrival is the Rotary Club of Kelana Jaya, established in 1991, the midwife in this instance being P.P. Jack Chan, who being a Shell man, might have found his piece of midwifery a new experience.
