From the November 2015 issue of The Rotarian

When Camilla McGill planned her first visit to India about
10 years ago, she couldn’t have known how quickly – nor
how painfully – she’d learn one of the trip’s most impor-
tant lessons.

“I was alone in a hotel, and I had a nightmare,” she says.
“I jumped out of bed, caught my foot in the sheet, fell to
the floor, and hit my head.” In the morning, she found
herself dizzy and disoriented, with a blossoming black
eye, but she was determined to keep her first appoint-
ment: assisting with a National Immunization Day e-
vent with Rotarians at a nearby hospital.

“I didn’t find the hospital I was looking for,” she says,
“but I came across a group of nuns who care for tuber-
culosis patients. They took me in, cleaned me up,
and put me back together.” She soon resumed her
work, grateful that the strangers’ kindness had side-
tracked her.

“As Westerners, we’re often taught to take initiative:
‘Be the leader! Stick to the plan!’” McGill says. “Most
of the Indians I’ve met don’t work that way; they work
with people. It’s about relationships.”

A decade after that first trip, the relationships McGill
has built with Indian, Canadian, and U.S. Rotarians
have helped hundreds of India’s poorest citizens in
a variety of projects.

Her journey began about 9,300 miles away from
India, in the town of Pearland, Texas. When she
and her husband moved there from Canada for
his job, McGill returned to school to study inter-
cultural communication – and joined the local
Rotary club. “I went to the 2005 Rotary Inter-
national Convention in Chicago my first year
as a member,” she recalls. “I saw the full inter-
national component of Rotary on display. I was
amazed to learn that there were grants avail-
able to do all kinds of things.”

Through Indian friends back in Canada, Mc-
Gill had developed an interest in India, and
she sensed an opportunity. She took to the
Web, browsing posts from Rotary clubs work-
ing in the country. Volunteers were needed
for many projects, including schools, a mater-
nity hospital, and an eye hospital, with the Ro-
tary Club of Anakapalle, a small town in east-
central India. “I contacted them, and I went,”
she says.

The hotel mishap aside, that first journey was
a success. A $1,000 donation from the Rotary
Club of Pearland furnished Anakapalle schools
with desks and benches, and later, larger grants
from The Rotary Foundation supported pro-
jects benefiting the town’s maternity and eye
hospitals.

McGill and her husband relocated again after
Texas – first to Wilmington, Del., and then, after
retirement, to Sarnia, Ont. – but the moves did-
n’t slow her volunteer efforts. She joined a Ro-
tary club in Delaware and kept working on
grant projects. In Sarnia, she joined the Ro-
tary Club of Sarnia-Bluewaterland, which co-
sponsored a Rotary Foundation Global Grant
project with the Anakapalle club last year at
the eye hospital.

“Cataracts are much more common in India
than they are here,” McGill explains. “The sun-
light there causes some cases, and diet – par-
ticularly insufficient food – can play a role.
When the eye hospital opened in 2000, the
goal was to provide 40 free cataract surgeries
per month and dispense eye medications to
the poor.” The grant last year provided cata-
ract surgeries for 760 people, medical treat-
ment for about 2,500 patients with other eye
conditions, and medical seminars on best
practices for improving eye health.

Through annual visits, McGill has witnes-
sed Rotary’s impact on the hospital. “One
year we paid for painting and new tiles, and
we’ve purchased a new autoclave,” she says.
“Many other Rotary clubs from the West have
donated ophthalmologic microscopes. Now
the hospital could use a phacoemulsifier” –
an expensive piece of equipment that uses
vibration to pulverize and extract the cataract.
It will help improve outcomes for patients with
limited access to health care – which McGill
describes as the most rewarding part of this
work.

Her visits to Anakapalle have allowed her
to see how vital the hospital’s services are
to the community too. “One day I was visit-
ing the eye hospital, and the staff was smil-
ing and happy and laughing, and I asked
why,” she says. “It turned out that a man
was coming in who’d had a damaged eye
removed at an early age. He had only one
eye left, and a completely white cataract
was covering that entire retina. The hos-
pital was going to remove the cataract,
and the staff knew he would be able to
see again. That was exhilarating to see
happen.”

She hopes other Western Rotarians
pursuing global grant projects will visit
potential partner clubs and project sites,
she says. “Once that’s done, the grant
becomes more than a piece of paper.
We can feel what the need is, in addi-
tion to knowing what the need is.”