President’s Message

2003-2004
International President
Mary Cotter

March 19, 2004

Dear Friends,

I have just returned from my month-long Quota Tour, during which I visited seven out of eight of our Club-to-Club World Service Projects. I would like to share some of my thoughts on projects I had the privilege of visiting.

India:

Charitable Dispensary and Vocational Training Center:
This is a two-fold project sponsored by Quota International of DLF City. First, they sponsor a clinic that provides medical care to very low-income area residents. The clinic operates five days a week, and the club employs the physicians. The second part of this program is a training center they operate for women in the village to help them gain vocational skills. With this self-supporting knowledge, the women can bring in some additional family income. The DLF Quotarians are present six to eight hours a day, six days a week, to oversee this project. They are working very hard.

Quota Home for Abandoned and Destitute Women:
This multi-faceted project sponsored by Quota International of New Delhi operates in a very poor income location. The program offers both mothers and children an education. Since education is not mandatory in India, this school gives the children an opportunity to learn that is not often enjoyed by many children. The adult training helps each woman or family become self-supportive. The program is helping women and children create a better life for themselves. The Quota Home has been in existence for many years, and it has helped countless families and individuals. I was privileged to be at the Home to dedicate the new section of the facility. The Morton H. Meyerson Tzedakah Family Fund made this addition possible.

Home for the Aged and Mobile Crèche:
Quota International of Sainik Farm sponsors these two projects. The club met the challenge to help a group of abandoned elderly nursing home residents. Before QI of Sainik Farm began working with this project, the building was falling down around the residents. The people living there were not safe. Quotarians from Sainik Farm changed all this and made the quality of life for these residents acceptable. The nursing home is a well run and safe place to live.

The mobile crèche is a school, located in a low-income area, that helps to educate and care for a group of very little children. Many times the food the children receive for the day is close to all they eat. The group has made great progress with this project in a very short amount of time. Most of the tiny children in this school would be on the streets to fend for themselves, if they weren't connected to the mobile crèche.

Philippines:

Sawang Calero and Guba Day Care Centers:
These two projects are sponsored by Quota International of Cebu. The Sawang Calero Center is located in an economically deprived part of Cebu. The children and their families are very poor, and the children depend on the school for many functions. The children must all be dewormed yearly, and again the center meets much of their daily nutritional needs. The sole teacher has two sessions a day—one with 35 children and one with 40 children.

To reach the Guba Day Care Center, the children must walk three to five miles in each direction. Many times when it rains, the roads are impassable, and they do not attend school. In this very rural location, the children would not have the opportunity to any education if it weren't for Quota International of Cebu and their Club-to-Club project.

Bahay San Rafael Home for Special Children:
Quota International of Las Piñas sponsors this project that offers highly specialized help to a group of children with profound diseases. The majority of these children were abandoned on the streets by their families, because they have cerebral palsy. This project helps to give these children some quality of life through therapy, proper nutrition, and love.

Project for Battered and Abused Women:
This project, sponsored by Quota International of Manila, is a work in progress and is not yet operational. Young women who have been abused will be able to find both refuge and training from this location. In the meantime, club members are offering assistance to young women who have been raped or abused and have just delivered children. The club also donates time and money to a group that offers shelter to young children ages one year and older who have been left on the streets to fend for themselves.

Deafness Resource Library:
Quota's Manila-South club is sponsoring a library that contains information about hearing health and related issues. This library, located in a special school for the deaf, will be available for use by parents, teachers, medical professionals, therapists, students, and the general public. The teachers believe that the children need to be prepared for the world before they are mainstreamed into a regular school. The children are taught to be in an oral world and to lip-read. This school treats the children and the family as a unit—all need to be educated to the deaf world.

I have had the most incredible Quota experience any person can have. It was an honor visiting all of the Club-to-Club projects. Thank you!

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