Just the other day one of our young tablers was watching the recent Oscar winning documentary SMILE PINKY and viola!!! An idea came up in his mind and he put it forward as a project proposal in one of our meetings to which the floor unanimously agreed and granted a fund. The project was Tr.Devesh Gupta’s idea.
Cleft lip and palate repairs are not included in any social welfare or health projects in any state government or central government schemes as a result of which most of the government hospitals do not do this surgery on a regular basis and the poor are denied of this surgery. Most of the times cleft lip surgeries are conducted as camps by charitable organizations and other NGOs.
So we at Vizag round table 77 decided to take up this project and start off with a humble figure of 15 patients initially.
Most of the beneficiaries of the project were from far flung tribal areas of Orissa and Srikakulam districts that were identified in prior screening camps. Most of these patients live in villages, which do not have access to even a proper road leave alone transportation. And, all of them are below the poverty line in terms of financial aspects.
The total cost of the project was one and a half lakh rupees (1.5 lakh)
@ Ten thousand rupees (Rs 10,000) per patient. The cost included transportation, hospital stay of 5 to 7 days, medicines, food and surgical expenses. A total of 11 unilateral cleft lip repairs, 2 bilateral cleft lip repairs and 2 cleft palate repairs were done.
All the surgeries were done at Metro hospitals, Visakhapatnam by
Dr. Shiva Nagender who is a young, energetic and a well trained Maxillo-facial surgeon.
At the end of the day putting back a smile on 15 young faces gives you immense satisfaction and the drive to do more. Basing on the success of this project we at VRT 77 are striving to take this project to even greater heights in terms of more number of beneficiaries by involving corporate institutions and other individuals who would like to “SPONSOR A SMILE”.
On the 25th of April, we the tablers and ladies of VRT 77 had a potluck social called “EK DUJHE KE LIYE” at Tr.Rajesh Aggarwal’s terrace.
The evening stated off with the regular business meet and then the fun began.
Tablers and the ladies were asked to dress complimenting each other the best. Tr.Kiran and Manjeera were judged the best-dressed couple. We had some unique games like “hoton se choo lo tum” wherein the tablers were asked to put on lipstick and kiss a chart paper and later the ladies were asked to identify their respective husbands lips!!! Quite a few could actually guess!!! And then we had games like “mere haath mein tera haath ho” and the tablers were asked to enact the way they had proposed to their wives years ago before their marriage, Tr.Aanand Khara walked away with the prize for the best proposal.
The evening also saw some hidden talents in so many of our ladies in the form of singing…. We had karaoke singing, which was a great hit and the party went on well past midnight.
On this occasion we also celebrated the birthday of Sq.Leg Hari Krishna.
All in all we had great fun and good attendance for this social, we had 4 prospects also attending this social
On April 19, 2009, tablers of 77 had a special party arranged only for the parents of Tablers and the 77 Ladies.
All parents were welcome and then a meeting was conducted to give them a feel of how the table functions. Lot of parents came forward and shared their opinions and appreciated the work of the Tablers.
All parents were given silver watches as a gift and.
It was a day filled with lot of interaction and friendship.
The dance was choreographed by Tr. Ameet Mirpuri and performed by almost all the Tablers and Ladies of the Table.
Ameet started conceptualizing the choreography for the number by 15th October a good two months before the day of the event and the practice started by 25th of November.
Everyone put their heart and soul into the performance.
Tr. Aanand was away for 8 days immediately before the day of the event and could not be one among the guys due to lack of practice. Tr. Ameet specially choreographed a small jive piece to fit him in.
Also the idea of dancing on the bar top was accepted very readily and was a great hit at the party. Well after this performance, through the night, Tablers kept climbing on to the bar top and dancing.
On April 10th we celebrated Twinklers day with Twinklers and Circlers at Vijayawada Club after a Circle meeting.We had good attendence from the twinklers inspite of the exam tension.It was in fact a great break from books.First we cut the twinklers cake which was cut by our smallest twinkler present Tw.Arjun.We gave each twinkler a star to wear which was followed by games for them to play.We played bingo(housie) in a different way.All numbers were places inside cartoon charcters of TOM and JERRY.Numbers were placed on their hands, feet ,face etc.Instead of lines we picked up winners as two hands two legs etc.Another interesting game was each twinkler was given set of straws which were cut into pieces.They were to join the pieces and run the race.
We also had the Tablers join us for dinner and a movie which was being played at the Club.
All of us had a great time chatting and must say it certainly was a stress reliver for most us.We all bid our goodbyes and returned to hitting books again!!!
Happy Holidays!!!
In Circle of Life,
Cr.Teena Benil
Fellowship Convenor VLC 52