If you are a golfer and you care about collecting some good karma, then you better not miss the chance to be a part of a the Hybrid International Golfing Tournament at DGC ( Delhi Golf Club) in the capital. The funds collected during this noble initiative will be contributed for the surgery of children with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) with underprivileged backgrounds. The Rotary Club of Delhi South, along with the Child Heart Foundation (CHF) has come together to organize this twelve-day long tournament and invited over 2000 players for this charitable series and save lives.
Heart of Gold: The collective aims to make a difference in the lives of the poor kids and families, who have been benefited in the past by similar initiatives. The President(20-21) of Rotary Club of Delhi South, Pradeep Kumar, mentions, “We are planning to invite 100 players at the inaugural event at the DGC on 14th April and expect 2000 players to play over the 12-day event from 14th to 25th April. We have contacted many known players to play at the course of their choice and also invite their friends to play because the cause is so noble. It idea is to save lives of poor children by surgical intervention that is too expensive for them to afford, and we have been planning it since the beginning of the year. We have been doing such tournaments in China for the same project ‘gift of life’ when I was serving as a Rotarian in RC Shanghai. But the COVID restrictions kept us away from organising it till we saw the success of one such tournament organised by Rotarians in memory of Yashpal Das in November. It was a multi-course golf tournament played in 4 South Asia. 557 golfers played in 36 cities at 43 golf courses and they raised 125K USD. We are doing a similar effort to have a physical tournament at DGC for 12 days for golfers to play at their own golf course around the world and submit their scores to the organizers.”
According to the latest medical data, almost one per cent of children in the world are born with congenital heart defects. These defects are commonly known as a hole in the heart that reduces the blood supply to various parts of the body and children have blue lips because and palpitation of the heart. Mr Pradeep Kumar informs that the target is to collect enough funds to support 25 additional surgeries of poor children with CHD. He adds, “During the past 4 months, we have saved the lives of 9 children from funds collected by us from CSR and individual donations. There is a token donation of INR 1500 or USD 20 that we expect players to give to the cause when they register. They are welcome to give more if they like. Then there will be some companies who may sponsor the tournament. We also will appeal to companies for assigning their CSR funds to the cause of saving lives of poor children with CHD. We work with Child Heart foundation as our partner and they provide free check-up for testing for such children and monitor their health. They also check the financial position of parents whether they can partly support surgery costs and when someone needs urgent surgery that is supported from donor funds.”
Players speak: One of the members of RCDS and an avid golfer Sarvpreet Singh, shares his take on this tournament and what made him participate for this cause. He says, “I’ve been associated with the Covid relief fund started by one of the members of the club, and got to know about this noble cause from him. It is disheartening to see kids as young as 1-year-olds losing the battle of life without being given a fair chance to fight. I thought it was a reason big enough for me to sign up for this one its kind tournament giving the gift of life to innocent souls. I have always supported any such charity events which touch my heart and push me to contribute within my capability to bring about a change, no matter how big or small it may be. I extensively promote such causes within my circle of influence to attract more participation.”
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