An “eye-opening” visit to India has revealed the huge difference Tayside Rotarians have been making to the health of poverty-stricken people in West Bengal.
The Rotary Club of Monifieth and District has helped to fund £30,000 of water and sanitation projects in the region.
Together with partners in Calcutta Rotary Club, it has been able to provide 134 toilets and 18 tube wells to improve conditions in four remote villages and a local school.
Members Hugh Begg and Nick Day, who played a major role in achieving grant aid from the Rotary International Foundation, visited India to see for themselves how the project is changing lives.
In West Bengal, the lack of clean water and toilets in the villages has led to the spread of water-borne diseases and low agricultural productivity due to illness.
Meanwhile, the lack of privacy for girls deters them from going to school, reducing their and their community’s prospects of breaking out of the cycle of poverty.
Nick said: “We had a rewarding but humbling experience and were delighted to see work progressing well, seeing how much the wells and toilets are needed in these remote villages and the gratitude of the villagers.
“We saw the Calcutta Rotarians training villagers and schoolchildren in basic hygiene practice.
“We also saw how much this was welcomed from the smiling faces and in one village a song and dance was performed thanking us for ending the old unhygienic system with its dangers and lack of privacy.
“The villagers were also keen for us to drink the clean water which we did with no ill effect.”
This latest venture cements the historic links between Dundee, Angus and the Calcutta area.
In its early days in the 1980s Monifieth Rotary Club also played the leading part in another huge well project in West Bengal.