Rotary Club Indore Central learns the principles of community service from Janak Palta McGilligan

According to the report of President Mrs. Shanta Parekh and Rotarian Sudhindra Mohan Sharma:

Indore

 24 members of Rotary Club of Indore Central visited Jimmy McGilligan Centre for Sustainable Development and were overwhelmed to see the completely self-sufficient, green, pure organic, pollution-free, garbage-free campus developed in half an acre on her barren hillock with Padmashree Janak Palta Didi. Saw cooking on solar dryer, solar kitchen, various types of solar cookers, saw biodiversity, saw many types of trees and plants.

Without any financial support, Janak Didi fulfills her needs and she only buys salt, tea leaves from the market. She fulfils her needs of grains, fruits, even soap from the aaritha of her land.

She gets electricity from her solar and wind energy, not only for herself, but also gives it free of cost to the tribal families in the neighbourhood for the last 14 years.

Through a presentation, Janak Didi told about her life journey that she and her husband Jimmy McGilligan, both were life partners dedicated to Baha'i service. They kept working towards the main goal of life with balance and restraint of body, mind and soul for community service. Jimmy ji built this building with his own hands and after making all the arrangements, he died in an accident in 2011. Janak Didi said, "By the grace of God, I realized that we do not have the choice of how we will die. But we definitely have the choice of how we will live!" Since then I am living with sustainable choices." With these words, Rotary members understood from Janak Palta ji that to make their lives meaningful, they have to motivate themselves! In response to the questions by Rotary Club members working for the progress of society, she said that instead of worrying about the time that has passed, the best way is focus on the development of children so that the coming generations can improve and the future of the society can be better.

Children of tribal families living around the centre also come to Didi's house every day to study and learn. Those children also talked to the guests and told how they are inculcating good things in their lives by coming to Didi's house. Like keeping their surroundings clean and keeping their behaviour and conversation clean and pure.

Club President Shanta Parekh, Club Secretary Jayshree Vyas, Program Coordinator VK Neema, Former Mandal President Sohanlal Parekh, Vijay Narayan Mittal, Kamal Bhuradiya, Ramesh Tiwari, Water Management Expert Sudhindra Mohan Sharma, and others Members and office bearers were present.

Club President Shanta Parekh expressed her gratitude to Janak Didi and said that "Janak Didi, you are our role model and are actually working with true Rotary spirit. All the members witnessed the activities of the entire centre with great enthusiasm, asked many questions, listened with great interest, appreciated and understood and said that today they experienced Satvik Anand. We all have to imbibe these thoughts and activities in our daily life. How can we do something meaningful for the future world by adopting a sustainable lifestyle, which will take the society and the country forward and also give self-satisfaction".