he Surat Municipal Corporation had organized an Aids Awareness rally in some of the most affected areas of Surat on 1st December – Aids Day. An appeal was also sent to almost all the NGOs of the town to assist the government in this noble cause. “Parivartan” – an NGO in Surat which has been relentlessly working towards deaddiction from Drugs & Alcohol and has cured thousands of addicted people till date, took up this opportunity and associated itself with the Municipal Corporation.

both – Parivartan and the Government. Rotary Surat Riverside thus got a dual opportunity of financially supporting its sister NGO as well as helping the society by means of a successful awareness rally. Social Worker – Smt. Arunaben Thackar who runs Parivartan is also associated with RSR in many ways and we got this noble opportunity by her efforts. The two NGOs jointly organized a human train which carried the message of our fight - "Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise".

Our efforts to create awareness for the need for innovation, vision and perseverance was most effective among all the other service organizations that took part.

Approximately 5000 people including 10 members from RSR participated in the rally which started from the Health Dept. of Surat Municipal Corporation and winded up at the SMC party plot in Varachha after covering an area of approx. 5 km in the neighbouring localities. All the service institutes which had joined the rally displayed their slogans/projects for the benefit of people.  A sense of satisfaction was evident on everybody’s face as they expressed hope for the success of their endeavor.

District Governor Ashok Panjwani has assigned each month with a District Service Project. Considering the increase in fatal road accidents in recent times, the idea of consigning one of the months to create awareness about traffic sense amongst people was a welcome step by DG.

Rotary Surat Riverside has always been in the forefront when it comes to community service. This time too, we decided to contribute towards the noble cause in a unique way.

We got around 10,000 pamplets printed in the press. The flyers carried message of the necessity of traffic discipline. The district slogan for the project “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear” was well incorporated amongst other points marked down for vehicle owners.

Riversiders along with some Anns and Annets gathered at the Athwagate Traffic Point on the morning of Sunday, 17th February 2008. The members divided in two groups and positioned themselves on both sides of the road to cover maximum traffic. A unique idea was adopted to implement a dress code of red shirts / T-shirts as a symbol of the red signal. Pamplets were handed over to the public who came to screeching halts at the junction in their holiday mood. The information jotted down in the papers made quite a good impact as everybody was reminded about the general civic sense that they were expected to demonstrate.

Rotary Surat Riverside had widely participated in Aids awareness campaign on 1st Dec, 2008. A rally was carried out by our kind Rotarians, other NGO’s, school and college children holding banners and other advertising material with them. Surat Municipal Corporation employees and more than 50 plus organizations were involved in this rally right from the morning.