I have said this again and again and again – that in life nothing happens by accident. If anything – things happen because of Karma. If Karma wills it, it can engineer a calamity in one corner of the earth so that another corner might benefit as a result. So it was with the BHUTAN2020 Safe Water Project – launched by the Disaster Aid Australia (DAA) in partnership with the Rotary Club of Thimphu – in 2018.
My private and personal offer of Thanks in gratitude to the principal players of Phase I of BHUTAN2020 Project
The Rotary Club of Thimphu’s single largest project – BHUTAN2020 – can be said to be a child of Karma - born of tragedy and misfortune. It was never meant to be – but for a devastating natural calamity that struck Nepal in 2015 and yet another minor one in September of 2017.
I believe that without the guiding hands of Karma, one of Bhutan’s most meaningful humanitarian projects would have never happened. Please read all about it here:
Another evidence of the hand of Karma is that – in 2017 when the fire that set ablaze the idea that eventually lead to the conception of BHUTAN2020 project …. His Excellency Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay was the Chief Guest for the Rotary Conference held then. Today, seven years since, when another Rotary Conference was inaugurated on the 1st of June, 2024, His Excellency Lyoenchen Tshering Tobgay is yet again the Conference’s Chief Guest.
I get this eerie feeling that COVID-19 was engineered by Karma - so that it can disrupt the Conference that was scheduled to take place in 2020 – in order that it can be postponed until 2024 when the stars would come together to create a favorable condition when His Excellency Lyoenchen Tshering Tobgay could once again be re-elected to office so that he may, yet again, inaugurate the 2nd Rotary Conference as its Chief Guest.
And, I believe that Act 3 of Karma has been the passage of a rare event – that of the convergence in Thimphu - of all the three principal actors in the BHUTAN2020 Project saga. Present in the recently concluded Rotary Conference in Thimphu on 3rd June, 2024 were: Mr. David Langworthy MAICD OAM™, the past CEO of Disaster Aid Australia (DAA) who had the courage, and the guts, to put such a monumental show on the road; Mr. Brian Ashworth the incumbent CEO of DAA whose unwavering tenacity and selflessness to deliver and see through a promise that was not his own and, above all, the presence of the most eminent Mr. Rhett Butler AM™, inventor of a patented water filtration system known as the SkyHydrant that is at the center of the project BHUTAN2020. Mr. Butler heads the SkyJuice Foundation – an Australia-based not-for-profit organization that aspires to provide safe drinking water to every child on this planet earth.
The launch of BHUTAN2020 Safe Water Project in Toronto, Canada in 2018
And, last but not the least, Karma keeps me alive and kicking – so that I may live long enough to tell this tale of boundless kindness and generosity that benefits tens of thousands of Bhutan’s school children, including the communities domiciled in the peripheries of their institutions of learning. Beyond the tens of millions that flow into Bhutan ceaselessly year after year – it is a story of success and achievement that is worth emulating across boundaries and generations.
Kadrinchey!
™ AM = Member of the Order of Australia
MAICD = Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors
OAM = Medal of the Order of Australia
OAM = Medal of the Order of Australia
Kudos to the acts of genuine kindness, compassion and support towards the school kids and communities. It is ironical that a country that used to boast of its water resources still faces acute shortages of clean/treated drinking water. In this age of uncertainty, such stories pacify the present and also render hope for the road ahead. Afterall clean drinking water is the very fibre of our lives.
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