Always a Ray of hope

“I joined Rotary about 50 years back. This was after the organisation sent me to the University of Cape Town,South Africa,in 1961 on a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship,” he tells us being the first person from his community to study abroad,he was inspired by what he saw and learnt. “I witnessed the black and the white people talking in harmony in Africa for the first time and realised that change could be brought,” Klinginsmith hence joined the Rotary Club of Unionville two weeks later.

From there on,as they say,there was no looking back. He took umpteen projects in his hand and completed them. “For now the focus is on polio eradication,” he nods as he moves on to the statistics that have come down from 746 in 2009 to one this year in India.

“But we still need to continue paying attention to it. Once we declare the world free of polio then we need to be on a vigil for the next three years,testing every case of paralysis for polio. Only then can we move on to the next corporate project,” Klinginsmith tells us then the world will be saving Rs One million dollars of vaccinations.

The youth wing of Rotary too is close to his heart. “Other than that we promote club,vocational,community and international service,” says Klinginsmith who tells us about the theme the club is working on Build Communities,Bridge Continents.

“That’s where our scholarships and exchange programmes come in,” he says as past Rotary International President Rajendra K Saboo takes stage and talks about their medical mission to Chindwara in Madhya Pradesh,where they examined over 73,840 patients and conducted orthopaedic,gynae,eye and dental surgeries on nearly 3,000 patients.

While Klinginsmith hosted an inter-city meeting of about 250 Rotarians from Punjab,Haryana,Himachal Pradesh,UP and Uttrakhand,he was accompanied by Rotary International Director K R Ravindran from Sri Lanka.