Balgram, India Orphange Project with Carrollton Club

This joint project between Carrollton Rotary and Douglas County Rotary was the original idea of Dr. Beheruz Sethna, a longtime member of the Carrollton Club and former President of the University of West Ga. for 20 years. He was the first President of a university in the US of Indian decent. He had been travelling to this somewhat remote village of Balgram, about two hours from the capital of India for many years. He had adopted and supported several children in a local orphanage in Balgram. He brought the idea for a Rotary Global project to his Club to build a better power grid by providing solar power stations for the orphanage so that learning could continue throughout a day with power disrupts which often happen in this part of the world. Pres. Larry Frazier of Carrollton and I met several times at the beginning of our year to work out the financial responsibility and agreed that both clubs would fund one-half of the $7500 and that Carrollton would write and submit the Grant application to Dist. and RI. That was completed by year-end 2014 and now is in review and our hope is this will be formally approved by 6/30/2015. Our Board met several times along with our Foundation Board and was fully behind this project as a way for a small Club like ours to participate in a Global project. Dr. Sethna will most likely be on-site in India as this project unfolds in the coming year.