By Turns 10
TEN years back India launched Chandrayaan – a vehicle to the Moon while Rotary Club of Bombay launched Bhavishya Yaan – a vehicle for uplifting the future of underprivileged children!
The Bhavishya Yaan programme (BY) of the Rotary Club of Bombay celebrated its annual day and 10th anniversary with much pomp and fanfare at the ISME Campus in Lower Parel, Mumbai.
BY was started in February 2009 at the Dr. Ambedkar School in Worli with just 40 students and is now in its 11th successful year improving the lives of 1600 students in six BMC schools! What a stupendous achievement!
The wonderful afternoon was strung together by BY mentor Avaan Vakharia who expertly hosted the entire event. BY Chair Rtn. Jamshed Vakharia began the proceedings by giving a glimpse to the distinguished gathering about the BY Programme followed by President Rtn. Preeti Mehta who shared her thoughts with the audience. She also acknowledged everyone for attending the programme and encouraging the students and expressed her gratitude to Rtn. (Dr.) Indu Shahani who graciously provided her infrastructure and auditorium to host BY’s 10th anniversary celebrations.
Preeti and Jamshed also specifically mentioned all the donors, the earlier Chairperson of BY and all the mentors over the years. They thanked the knowledge partner Vidya and their team led by Mrs Neeta Pradhan and Tech Partners Info Troopers and their team led by Mr Niranjan Rao & Mr Girish Rao. A special shout was also made to PP. Rtn. Ramesh Narayan who has been the pillar of the BY programme since its inception. Special thanks were also due to Mr D Sivananandan, Mr D K Raikar, Mr V Ranganathan, Ms Delnaz Palia, Mr Homi Bhabha and Vishal Desai of Colors. These wonderful people have supported the programme in their personal or official capacities. It is this joint effort by one and all from every spectrum of society that has made the BY programme what it is today. Most of the students have gone on to pursue higher education and diverse careers ranging from film making to hospitality to engineering to law. The programme wouldn’t have been successful and won international and national accolades without this support. Many other Rotary clubs have started modelling their education related programmes on the basis on the Bhavishya Yaan programme. A true feather in the cap for the Rotary Club of Bombay!
A short film on Bhavishya Yaan followed after the introductory speeches. The theme was “Seven Deadly Sins“ – the seven traits of man or cardinal sins according to the Christian teachings are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth.
Each of our schools chose to depict one sin through a play and sought to share their learnings on the same. Colaba School portrayed Gluttony, GK School – Pride, NMJ – Sloth, Byculla – Wrath, Prabhadevi – Envy and Ambedkar School – Greed. Each of the plays / song performaces / dance performances was followed by school alumni sharing his / her experiences of the Bhavishya Yaan programme and explaining how it has impacted their lives. Abhishek (Colaba school), Pooja (GK MArg), Vedant (N M Joshi), Mamta Jadhav (Byculla) and Deepika Pawar (Ambedkar school) shared their experiences and profusely thanked the programme, teaching and support partners and Rotary Club of Bombay for transforming their lives!
Thereafter, it was time to welcome our chief guest, Student of the Year actress Tara Sutaria. She came onto the stage amidst thundering applause and fanfare. The children and the elders were extremely excited to see this star who recently made her sensational debut in Student of The Year 2. Avaan even coaxed Tara into singing a wonderful rendition of the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from Wizard of Oz.
Thereafter, Tara gave away prizes to the students who had passed their 10th from all the schools.
Although the audience lusted for more, but all good things need to come to an end and so did this afternoon!
The importance of the programme could be gauged from the various attendees – more than 350 in number including Past Presidents, Donors, Mentors, Knowledge and Tech Partners, Rotarian and guests who attended the event and cheered and encouraged all the students!
Well done, Team
Bhavishyayaan !!
