Note From President Shernaz Vakil

SUSTAINABILITY

I find the word sustainability thrown about a lot in the Rotary world and especially at RCB.

What is the actual meaning of a sustainable project?

Is it that the project can sustain without any further Rotary intervention or is it that the project will continue to provide succour to the needy on a sustainable basis?

Though I have always favoured the latter, I find many of our members looking only at short-term projects that get completed as soon as the payment is made.

I do agree that creating a long-term liability for future Presidents to sustain is not ideal. However, neither is a short-term intervention when we are dealing with serving a community and its needs.

The happy balance would be like PP Ramesh Narayan did, by collecting funds for a three-year intervention at our Bhavishya Yaan schools; or as PP Preeti Mehta and IPP Framroze Mehta did by finding a way to continue to support our village projects.

What then is required is a collaborative approach between each President that ensures that our community interventions do not suffer from year to year.

This is exactly what we have followed this year.

Four Presidents sat together to develop a longterm plan, taking into account our ongoing projects and accepting the responsibility to fund them.

This ensures that in the future, as was always done in the past, our projects will continue, and the community will see no break in the service.

We are RCB, because all our projects directly address some need in the community and sustain further because we are
successful in meeting that need.

These projects are not considered sustainable by some but in my eyes, they have met the criteria of sustaining in
time!

— President Shernaz Vakil