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SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH SERVICE PROJECTS (PART 1)

 

He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.

Confucius (551- 479 BCE), Chinese Philosopher

The greatness of social organisations like Rotary International is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members. Eradication of Polio in India by 2014 is synonymous with Rotary. Through the Polio Plus Programme initiated in 1985, Rotary was the first humanitarian organisation to visualise Polio-free world. Since 1988, being one of the founding members of Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI)[1] Polio eradication has been the priority project of Rotary across the world. Incidentally, it was in 1988 I began my journey in Rotary. But it took more than fifteen years for me to meet a member whose main interest was to serve the community using the Rotary platform. 

I had first met Jayaraman during 2003 when he was President of his home club – Rotary Bangalore R.T. Nagar, as he wanted his club to be part of the eye-care project – supporting one thousand free cataract surgeries, which was being planned by me as chairman of the District Avoidable Blindness Committee. He had invited me to be a speaker at one of his club’s meetings to talk about the project and its benefits to the community. The association that began twenty one years ago has enabled several projects not just in the area of eye-care, but other areas too.

Subramanian Jayaraman (b.1954) was born in the house of District Collector (DC). His mother Sarada delivered Jayaraman at her younger brother K. Subramaniam’s home. Krishnaswami Subrahmanyam (1929-2011), topper of 1951 Indian Civil Services batch belonging to Madras cadre was posted as DC of Sivakasi during 1952-55. A few months later, in the same house India’s current External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar (b.1955), second son of K. Subrahmanyam also was born. K. Subrahmanyam hailed as father of Defence Research in India went on to serve two terms (1969-75 and 1980-87) as Director General of Institute of Defence Research and Analysis, New Delhi and was known for his dogged determination, fearlessness and perseverance. Perhaps Jayaraman inherited some of his uncle’s characteristics that enabled him to successfully implement many major service projects later in his life!

Jayaraman completed his schooling at Aravankad where his father, employed with defence accounts was posted and later joined Coimbatore Institute of Technology (CIT) for his graduation in Electronics Engineering. No sooner he completed his graduation in 1976 Jayaraman joined as a Senior Scientific Assistant in the School of Automation department, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. He worked at IISc for two years and was fortunate to find his life partner Nirmala there, who has been a pillar of support in all his endeavours. Over the next thirty years Jayaraman wore different hats, working in the areas of Instrumentation, Computers, Processing Laboratory (producing video films), Newspaper industry, Education domain to establish Community Learning Centres and a Software Startup as director, operations!

In 1991 Jayaraman joined Rotary Bangalore Northwest as a charter member and used the Rotary platform to implement several service projects. Distributing idlis[2] that his mother made for the poor in the nearby areas was enjoyable act that Jayaraman indulged in his childhood years without knowing in the later years he would be enabling thousands to get their meals day after day! Since 2006 Jayaraman has been supporting programmes of a Non-Government Organisation (NGO) – Integrated Project for Development of People (IPDP) established to enhance economic and social well being of women and children that included supplying mid-day meals to 11,500 government school students. Having observed poor people from distant villages who were visiting Dr. Ramana Rao’s free village clinic[3] at T.Begur village of Bangalore Rural district were going hungry, Jayaraman with the help of IPDP and a few donors organised a meal to those poor patients. Today, IPDP serves meal to nearly 1200 poor patients every Sunday at Rao’s free clinic. Fist full of Rice is another project that Jayaraman popularised among school, children encouraging them to donate rice to the needy. Recently he shared with me a message from a Chennai based foundation who had collected ten tons of rice through a group of school students based on this idea!

As I was involved in eye-related projects, Jayaraman approached me sometime during October 2009 to join hands with him to create awareness about eye donation and through that enhance collection of eyes of the deceased to support cornea tissue transplantation. To realise this objective he established Nayana Jyothi, an independent trust during January 2010 with me as one of the founding trustees. Like a research scholar, he visited across India many of the eye hospitals which housed eye banks, to understand more about eye-banking and also enlisted Nayana Jyothi as a Life-member of Eye Banks Association of India. He created collaterals in terms of power-point presentations, website and innovative concepts like Vision Ambassador to motivate people to volunteer for promoting eye donation. He relentlessly worked with governments of Tamilnadu and Karnataka to get 108/104 as a common number for anyone to inform nearest eye bank on death of a person and worked with Tata Consultancy Services to develop the required software for the Call-centre. He further developed simple process of pledging through the Short Message Service (SMS) using a hand-held phone, which today is adopted by many nation-wide, resulting not just ease of pledging, but in saving of paper too! Through my association with Nayana Jyothi I could understand how Integrity, Innovation, Inclusivity and Involvement are the foundational elements around which Jayaraman develops socially relevant service projects that can make a lasting impact! 

Sometime during August 2013, I got a call from Jayaraman wanting to know whether I will be able to support a school in Soladevana halli near Hesaraghatta, as the roof of first floor of two class-rooms had collapsed due to heavy rains. Most of the students of the school were from the economically underprivileged category and hence could not afford to pay the fees, nor was the school receiving any government aid. Apart from supporting financially, I started visiting the school every week to monitor the progress of the construction for almost three months. With the support of a few Rotary clubs and a corporate that Jayaraman brought in, not only the two class-rooms, but two toilet blocks were also built. Subsequently a company involved in manufacturing laboratory furniture for Biotech industries and Research Institutions came forward to establish a Science laboratory for the school. Narendra Nayak, an ex-colleague of mine at Indian Telephone Industries during 1970s started teaching voluntarily mathematics to the high school students just after his retirement as CEO of a Multi-National Corporation and also got CSR support for the school from the company with which he has been involved as advisor. Since then, over the last nine years the school has grown in leaps and bounds, both in terms of academics and infrastructure. It is again Jayaraman who introduced Narendra to the school! It is said that Vision is seeing the future. But Jayaraman looks always at the present problems of the needy and quickly puts together the available resources – men, material or money to solve the problem! 

During the pandemic period, Jayaraman was literally One Man Control Room connecting many corporate with Rotary clubs for ensuring food distribution among the poor. Understanding the important role played by 108 ambulance drivers during the pandemic, Jayaraman organised an exclusive programme to honour them for their services with the support of a few Rotary clubs and TITAN Limited. 

Recently when I asked Jayaraman how he manages to get the needed energy, he said he finds it very difficult to say ‘No’ either when someone seeks his help to address a problem or someone wants to donate money for supporting a cause. His abilities to grasp a problem, find an innovative solution and the required resources have made him a highly sought after Rotarian across the country! 

[1] GPEI is a public-private partnership led by national governments with six partners – the World Health Organization(WHO), Rotary International, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. (https://polioeradication.org)

[2] Idli is a savoury rice cake, a popular breakfast in South India

[3] Dr.B.Ramana Rao, a General Physician-Cardiologist has been managing a free clinic in his native village T.Begur, Nelamangala since 15th August 1973 uninterrupted every Sunday. (https://villageclinicdotin.wordpress.com/about-us)  

October 21, 2024 | Ravi 88


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