Read how a Rotary Foundation District Grant helped Rotary Cairns Sunrise provide a reliable electricity supply to a village school in Pakistan.

A long-term project to improve a village school in rural Pakistan took another leap forward as a result of a Rotary Foundation District Grant.

There is a great challenge in Pakistan with the electrical supply being totally unreliable, so in conversation with the Headmistress, we developed the idea of installing a solar system on the school roof.

The project had a few challenges, mainly due to varying exchange rates, but with goodwill on behalf of donors, the goal was achieved, and now the school is almost a “tourist attraction.”

Even so, I was somewhat unprepared to receive the photos of the children with the project solar panels “up close”. Well, it would certainly not happen in Australia that children would be on the roof of the school celebrating their new solar panels!

These Pakistani children were honouring the delivery of the solar system enabled by a Rotary Foundation District Grant. My Club, Rotary Club of Cairns Sunrise led the effort, supported by Rotary Club of Rosanna and two Rotarians from the US Virgin Islands.

Special thanks to Nauman Abbasi, our District 9560 Polio Chair for managing liaison with the Headmistress of Apex School Sadaf Aqib; Col Lawson for technical advice; Mick Schramm our Treasurer; Ian Bushby and Dr Peter Little from Rosanna Rotary Club; our Area Governor Rita Zappulla, and Corinne Van Rensselaer, Leslie White and Timothy Susan Hall from US Virgin Islands.

A further "win-win" is that we also installed a battery enabling excess electricity to be sold to the Grid to make money for the school.