Basic Education and Literacy - This is the title of the focus month for September
Imagine a world without communication skills, or the lack of ability to possess basic literacy skills of reading or understanding or use of social media. It is hard to imagine, as we accept these talents and skills as a given. However, there are those among us who do not possess those skills. In Africa and other under developed countries there is a need for women and girls to cart water for the families, almost a full-time occupation, denying them the opportunity to education. 26% of world adult population (1:5) can’t read or write. 775 million people over age 15 can’t read.1122 million children also cannot read 44% of Australian adults lack the literacy skills for everyday life.
It is no surprise that one of Rotary Internationals Areas of Focus is Education and Literacy.
Many Rotary Clubs are involved in activities around the resolution of these challenges by,
Providing “Books for Babies“ – a ‘First Book’ to each new-born child, in a local community.
A ‘First Dictionary’ to each new Year 3 child.
LAP, learning Assistance Programs where adults listen to children reading 1:1 in schools.
Providing breakfast programs at Primary Schools to develop more responsive learning.
Warracknabeal Club being involved in a WORDS Literacy program – an investment in the home learning environment in families.
Kerang Club – ‘Rotary Junior Community Award Diary’ project for years 6 &7, and ‘Spelling Bee’ project for years 4,5,6,
A Message from PDG Una Hobday, Chair of Food Plant Solutions
"As I write this morning, I am looking out on a beautiful sunny day after a frost. Spring has arrived. My mind is on what vegetables I can plant in my new garden in a few weeks’ time. I know we will eat well for the next year.
Then I turn on the TV and see Mumbai in flood, floods in Texas, people being killed around the world. I think of the Rotary Clubs in many parts of the world that are working in these community’s to assist people in response to these disasters. What can you do? What can your club do to assist the families waking up to very little nutritional food for their families?
I know we cannot do everything, but each of us CAN make a small difference.
Maybe you can go to the school near you and see how they are going with their school gardens. Maybe you could visit retirement villages and check how these people are growing nutritional food on their decks or maybe they have a vegetable garden you could help in regularly. Maybe you could contact a Rotary Club in an area around the world in need and ask what you can do. Maybe you are working to rebuild a school. If so, why not add a garden to this project? We can help you by preparing resources you need to assist in the area - just ask. We can also partner with you in your Global Grant.
In my area there is a group called ‘Fresh Food for Families’, who are working with TAFE and the Royal Society to develop a program for new Tasmanians in the Nepalese and Ethiopian communities.
Perhaps your club is planting trees or helping clubs in other countries plant trees, which have good nutritional value, as part of World president Ian’s request to plant a tree for each Rotarian in the world.
In this year of Rotarians "Making a difference", I am sure you are all working hard to continue to make a difference in your communities and around the world."
Full Newsletter available to download from Article Links at the bottom of this Newsletter.
Lift the Lid on Mental Illness
Mental illness is the greatest health challenge currently facing the Australian community and we hope to work with Rotary Clubs and the general public to change that. By increasing awareness and raising more funds for mental illness research, we aim to double our annual research investment in this Rotary year and truly ‘make a difference.’
If there is an opportunity for us to speak to your Clubs, or at one of your early Presidents’ meetings, we will be happy to make a short presentation on our Lift the Lid on Mental Illness campaign.
Australian Rotary Health has been a project of the Rotary Clubs of Australia since 1981. It started by successfully funding research into SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) and lowering infant deaths by 80%. Our current and major focus is Mental Illness.
We have recently introduced a new fundraising initiative called Lift the Lid on Mental Illness. For the next three years, our Lift the Lid campaign will be celebrated in October Mental Health Month, including World Mental Health Day on 10th October.
We also want to work with coffee shops around the country in our Lift the Lid initiative. For those of your members who
have a local coffee shop (or are familiar with others in your area), we will be encouraging them to make contact with the coffee shop owners managers to enlist their support for Lift the Lid in early October.
You can download flyers for both these events from Articles Link at the bottom of this newsletter.
Australia’s biggest vertical race is on again this year in November – raising much needed funds for Interplast and Whitelion - for the 10th time.
A 300m vertical climb, 88 levels, 1642 steps and the most amazing view of Melbourne is the reward for 10-30 minutes of your time. Entering a team of four cost $240, with team members able to pledge to raise more funds.
Search Facebook “Eureka Tower Climb 2017” for further details, or search for this with Google.
The Rotary District 9780 Interplast Committee will be contacting each club over the next two weeks to help them field a team. If you or your club are unable to, you might be able to sponsor a local group of firefighters, policemen or athletes to run under your banner. It is also a great way of promoting Rotary to a younger group. If your club needs new members, then support for such a team is a subtle way to raise the consciousness of Rotary to such valuable potential members. Click link for more details https://www.crsadmin.com/Gen/EventPlanner/EventServices.aspx?aid=50058
DONATION TO VOLUNTEER TRANSPORT PROGRAM
Concurrent to each years Annual Easter Art Show, the Rotary Club of Drysdale runs an annual Art Show raffle. The Club has enjoyed supporting many and various programs with the funds raised including Cystic Fibrosis Geelong and Andrew Love Cancer Centre. This year the Club chose to support the Barwon Health Rotary Volunteer Patient Transport Program.
The Barwon Health Rotary Volunteer Patient Transport Program provides volunteer drivers taking patients to important medical appointments when they are unable to get there themselves. They transport approx. 17,100 patients per annum in five cars funded by eleven local Rotary Clubs. Funding covers the running costs of the cars including cost of fuel, servicing and tyres. The cars are very clearly marked with a large Rotary Logo, look out and you will notice the cars in our neighbourhood.
At our last Club meeting Zoe Waters from Barwon Health came and spent some time explaining the programs benefits. To her surprise the Rotary Club of Drysdale made a presentation of a cheque for $5500 towards the Patient Transport Program, proceeds from the raffle. When presented with the cheque Zoe said “The volunteer drivers will be moved to tears because of this donation”. The volunteers are devoted to their driving and desire to be able to continue making a difference in the lives of their patients.
If you were one of the many people who bought a raffle ticket your support was instrumental in making this valuable donation to an exceptionally worthwhile local cause.
Caroline Rickard
Publicity Officer
0408 989 221
and funds raised from this go to support the Barwon Health-Rotary Volunteer Patient Transport program, a project that is sponsored by a number of Geelong Rotary clubs.
Rotary Cambodian Adventure
Many members in supporting clubs expressed an
interest in travelling to Cambodia to visit the project areas and see personally the impact of their support.
The proposed trip would begin in Phnom Penh. It will include visits to the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, the Killing Fields as well as The Palace, National Museum. The visit will include a live show featuring Cambodian dance and music.
The group will also visit some Rotary supported projects in and around Phnom Penh.
We will then travel to Veal Veng district in Pursat Province to visit the communities that have received fresh water because of Rotarians in District 9780. We will visit villages, schools and have an opportunity to meet with the communities we have supported. This will be an uplifting experience to share the joy and the life changing stories. We will also have an opportunity to visit classrooms and interact with students in the schools that our Rotary clubs have supported.
We will then travel to Battambang where we will have the opportunity to take in the sites of ancient Angkor Ruins and experience a relaxing time in Cambodia’s second largest city.
The last stop will be Siem Reap, the gate way to the majestic Angkor Wat and the many other temples. A town alive with restaurants and shows. We will include a trip to the holy mountain Phnom Kulen and the surrounding area. We will see a huge reclining Buddha, river bed carvings and early 9th century temples. We will have a picnic lunch at the waterfall.
To highlight the areas in which Rotary does its most significant work, RI President Ian Riseley will convene a series of six presidential conferences during 2017-18 Rotary year. The six conferences will focus on how peace relates to each of Rotary’s five other areas of focus as well as to environmental sustainability.
The goals of this conference series will be to:
• Elevate Rotary’s status as a global leader in each area of focus
• Demonstrate The Rotary Foundation’s impact in each area of focus
• Acquire knowledge to inspire and enhance Rotary’s service engagement
• Provide a platform for members and nonmembers to network, make connections and explore partnerships for projects
Membership resources
There are many membership resources on offer to assist clubs.
The latest being a ‘Task Team’ – a District 9780 initiative, a resource group of passionate people, committed to ‘Making a Difference.’
These Team members have been trained by PDG Jessie Harman and are available to clubs wishing assistance in driving their membership efforts. They come with enthusiasm, passion and commitment, to assist your bags of contacts become members.
Contact: your Club Assistant Governor or District Membership ChairSteve Giddens (after 27th August).
Membership Retention -
At the recent Zone Institute in Darwin , District 9780 was presented with a Membership Development Award. This award was in recognition of our District achieving the highest membership retention level in Zone 8 for the 2016-17 year. This is a wonderful recognition of all the hard work done by clubs - and a credit to everyone. Lets aim to make it "Back to Back "success in 2017-18 !!
International Fellowship of Rotarian Educators
If you are interested in or have a passion for education, you may want to join one of Rotary's newer fellowships. Rotarians, family members of Rotarians, Rotaractors, alumni, and program participants are eligible for membership. It is important to note that one does NOT have to be an educator or work in the field of education to become a member.
Membership dues are $20 for one year, $50 for three years, or $100 to become a lifetime member. Please visit http://www.rotarianeducators.org for more information about this fellowship and how to join online by credit care or PayPal.
Additionally, the International Fellowship of Rotarian Educators plans to collaborate with the Free Reading Program. This global literacy initiative provides an effective online literacy program with a social media twist for children in kindergarten through grade level six. for more info on this program, please visit http://www.freereadingprogram.com/
New Pad for Bordertown's White Roos
The Rotary Club of Bordertown, SA, recently built shelters for Bordertown Wildlife Park’s famous mob of white kangaroos. White kangaroos came to the park after a population appeared near Warrakoo Station near the South Australia/NSW border. White native species crop up occasionally in the wild, however, due to their increased visibility, predators and hunters looking for an unusual trophy often pick them off. Bordertown local Barry Smith caught a large white buck for the sanctuary in 1984 by jumping from his motorcycle and crash-tackling it to the ground.
After it was sedated, his sister Sandra delivered the buck to the sanctuary in the back of her panel van. Two years later, after his introduction to the park’s female kangaroos, the first white joey was born. Over 50 of his descendants have since inherited his remarkable snowy fur, an unusually strong expression of the white gene. A number have been sent to wildlife parks across Australia, however, there is only one mob, with around 20 currently living at the Bordertown Wildlife Park. The council wished to build shelters to allow the kangaroos to avoid the elements within their enclosures.
They were unable to afford the requisite manpower, however, something the Rotary Club of Bordertown was happy to provide. “There are trees and scrub in the pens, but it wasn’t enough for the whole mob to fit under comfortably, so a tin shelter was installed,” said club member Trevor Butler. “But the kangaroos wouldn’t go near it! It was too loud when it rained.” It was envisaged this problem could be avoided by thatching native broombush for the new shelters. “A bunch of Rotarians went down to a property in Willalooka with lots of broombush, cutting off a trailer load of big bundles,” Trevor said. “We then built a frame and had to learn how to thatch properly. It was a learning curve as we hadn’t done that sort of thing before.” After all this effort, it wasn’t certain the white kangaroos would take to their new “furniture”. However, one freezing, wet day, not long after the shelters went up, Trevor took a look on his way to work. “Sure enough, they were all huddled in the two thatched shelters– and none were in the tin shed.”
The Rotary club is planning to build additional shelters for the two other paddocks the kangaroos are rotated through. If you would like more information on visiting Bordertown’s white kangaroos, contact Tatiara Visitor Information Centre on 08 8752 1044 or email www.tatiara.sa.gov.au.
AID TO CURRENT NATURAL DISASTERS
Once again we are seeking the support of Rotary Clubs and Rotarians as we face multiple calls on our disaster relief efforts around the world. Over the past year we have been fortunate not having to face major regional disasters, so we can focus on assisting aid efforts in other parts of our world …
with catastrophic flooding in Asia and Hurricane Irma, Katia and Jose hitting the Caribbean. ShelterBox has teams in Nepal and Bangladesh, and we are on the ground in Panama to understand how we can help the most vulnerable people.
Please find in the read more section a letter from Rowley Tompsett, Chair of Shelter Box Australia, seeking support for you all.
To find out more on joining the Shelter Box team and help ensure no family goes without shelter following a disaster or humanitarian crisis, click here
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