Newsletter March 2015 RIBI International Committee.
Crop failure in Kenya DG Wendy Watson – wendy@mexboro.demon.co.uk – would be interested to know, following complete crop failure in Kenya and the lack of seed maize to plant this years crops, whether any Clubs might be involved in related projects to assist.
An International Opportunity in August / September 2015! Your chance to make a difference to the lives of disadvantaged young people in the Balkans through sport and play. How does WORLD AT PLAY 2015 work? • Nine volunteers along with a staff leader run developmental sport and play sessions with our partner organisations in Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo and Romania. • The expedition lasts about 9 weeks. • Volunteers plan and deliver exciting high-quality activity sessions, ranging from traditional sports to specially designed activities and quieter drama and circle games. • A long-term impact and legacy is ensured by training local volunteers. You will: • Receive top-quality training to increase your skills as a play leader. • Develop your confidence as you facilitate and instruct sessions in the 5 host countries. • Gain recognition through the Millennium Volunteers Global / Sport Award for 200hrs of volunteering • Learn to work as a member of a small team of young people from a range of different backgrounds • Get first hand work experience in an international development charity working both in Wales and overseas. • Explore a region beyond the tourist trail and enjoy making friends with the local participants and with our partners • Receive constant support and feedback culminating upon your return with a thorough debrief and, where necessary, assistance with finding local volunteering opportunities/ internships/ work experience.
Get Involved! Being a volunteer on one of our expeditions is a hugely enjoyable and rewarding experience. This is what some of our 2014 volunteers have to say: “Being involved in a World at Play expedition is an incredible opportunity, an amazing experience which you should not miss.” Anna, 2014 Expedition Team “Be prepared for a massive adventure. Youʼll find that you can do things that you never thought possible. I worked with blind, deaf, autistic and Romany children. I would never have thought I could do it.” Morgan, 2014 Expedition Team “I truly feel that there is nothing else I could have done over a 3 month period that would have been so useful for others and also so enriching for myself. I think everyone should have this experience.” Luke, 2014 Expedition Team The next expedition will leave in August / September 2015! Have a look at our website www.worldatplay.org.uk and to register your interest please contact wendy@worldatplay.org.uk To learn a little more about it contact former D1150 DISC Gareth Rees via gareth.rees26@btinternet.comm .Gareth is both the Treasurer and a Trustee of World at Play and has been for several years.
Rotary Club of Masaka in D921 (Uganda / Tanzania) & Falmouth Rotary An extract from the Club’s bulletin (Volume 20, issue 30)….The Rotary WASH Project was conceived following the visit of the Kamuzinda community representatives to UK. Subsequently PDG John Pearce of the Rotary club of Falmouth in the U K also visited Kamuzinda & Bukomansimbi communities and advised these communities to approach Rotary Clubs in the area to initiate the proposal for funding the project. A WASH project committee from among Rotarians of Masaka and Kalisizo clubs carried out a baseline survey to start implementing the project. Target Areas were Bukomansimbi Town Council and fringe areas (12 villages) and Kamuzinda Community (4 villages). Preferred beneficiaries were vulnerable members of society (The aged persons, the disabled, widow or child headed households and some schools) and the Scope of Services has been: rain water harvesting-40 tanks, RWH tanks in 5 schools, household latrines 17, shallow wells 7, piped water supply systems —2 communities, training of masons and school teachers, construction of water closet toilet and one 5-stance VIP latrine, construction of 10 water kiosks in Kamuzinda and Bukomansimbi, capacity development in income generating project management and seed funding.
As I write now, the project is ready for commissioning. This will be done during the first week of March 2015 when we are expecting a team from the Rotary club of Falmouth led by none other than PDG John Pearce who, shall we say, is the founding father of the project. Our heartfelt gratitude and thanks go to all of you who have participated in this project. These include the WASH Committee and members of the Rotary clubs of Kalisizo and Masaka. Special notable persons are: PDG John Pearce and his wife Janet who travelled here a number of times to witness the implementation of the project; the Rotary club of Falmouth and D1290 and the Richard Lander school, all in the UK; the Uganda Rotary Country Offices of PDG Stephen Mwanje, Sarah Odong and Lydia Bujara. We are very thankful to the Local Government Chairperson of Masaka District, Mr. Joseph Kalungi; the LC 3 Chairperson of Bukomansimbi and his team including the Mayor and Town Clerk of Bukomansimbi. We would be mean if we do not appreciate services rendered by MADDO, the Masaka District Cooperative officer Mr. Kaboine, the Water Development Facility, Wakiso and Engineer Peter Nyakana, the Technical Service Unit 7 Masaka as well as the Masaka Water District officer. In conclusion, it’s worthwhile stating that the Rotary club of Masaka has loved and enjoyed working with the Uganda Government as a whole through its different arms of running the affairs of the community.
Expansion of EAP into a new East African country Bob Muston – capel@onetel.com – outlines the aims of the East African Playgrounds as enhancing the lives of children across East Africa by developing children’s learning opportunities and environments whilst providing valuable training and employment. - To allow children free access to a safe place to play and develop - To allow children a space to develop their creative and inter-personal skills - To give young men and women the skills to have a prosperous future Background East African Playgrounds (EAP) was founded in 2009 by two UK students and two Uganda builders with the aim to provide safe, fun and creative playgrounds for the children of East Africa. Since 2009 they have developed EAP from a team of volunteers building one playground a year into an international NGO that has given over 30,000 children in Uganda access to 66 fun, safe and high quality playgrounds. Alongside the playgrounds that EAP builds they also have changed the lives and futures of over 30 young men and women by training them as playground builders in their two workshops in Jinja, Uganda, and started a work experience and training programme for teenage street children. Through running simple arts and play projects in schools and children’s hospitals across Jinja district they have trained over 25 teachers in a more creative way of teaching. Many of the projects EAP run are supported by student volunteers who come to Uganda to help build a playground. Over 500 students have benefited from this opportunity gaining invaluable skills and experience volunteering on their projects. EAP has started to gain recognition for its work, being a finalist in the UK Student Union RAG charity of the year 2014, winning the Vodaphone world of difference award 2013 as well as being in talks with War Child, VSO and UNICEF about the impact that EAP is having across Uganda and the potential for future growth.
The founders and board of EAP now want to give children and young adults across East Africa the same opportunities as those they have given in Uganda. EAP aims to do this by opening up the first playground building workshop outside of Uganda. This new workshop will not only build international standard playgrounds but also train young men and women to become highly skilled welders and builders. EAP will be using the Uganda workshop as a ‘blue print’ to set up and run this new workshop in a neighbouring country. Following our research Kenya and Rwanda are the potential countries to expand to, with further research being undertaken to select the location for EAP’s first playground building workshop outside of Uganda. If our expansion is successful we aim to open up playground building workshops in multiple countries across Africa. The board, founders and Ugandan team all believe that EAP has the potential to add the following to the work it is already doing in Uganda by opening up a new workshop in either Kenya or Rwanda. The expansion will aim to give:
Over 5,000 children access to safe, fun, creative and high quality playgrounds by building 10 playgrounds in their new workshops first year. 10,000 children access to safe, fun, creative and high quality playgrounds by building 20 playgrounds every year thereafter. 10 young men and women the opportunity to become highly skilled, full time employed playground builders. This will give them the chance to progress, have a better future for them and their families. 3 young men and women the chance to train to become administrators, play workers and play consultants. This will give them the chance to progress and have a better future for them and their families. By building playgrounds in a new country thousands more children will benefit and more young men and women will be given the chance to develop themselves, their familiesand their communities.
‘Jingle Jam for Jabs’ When local 28 year old entrepreneur Matt Mason joined The Rotary Club of Reading Matins he was immediately proud to be part of the worldwide International humanitarian organization including Rotary’s effort to eradicate polio. Matt developed a partnership with the UK’s ‘Kings of You Tube’ and raised £135,000 in a Christmas Appeal for END POLIO NOW. Matt enjoys computer games and remembered that ‘The Yogscast’, the biggest You Tube video production company for games in the UK, had developed locally in Reading. He recalled that they ran a Christmas Charity Campaign each year and contacted the company, asking whether Rotary’s ‘END POLIO NOW’ project might be one of their chosen charities in the 2014 charity campaign. Supported by club members Matt made all the necessary links and was delighted when ‘The Yogscast’ informed him that END POLIO NOW had been selected for inclusion with four other charities. Each night through December ‘The Yogscast’ ran Jingle Jam events promoting the charities and their world-wide subscribers made donations in exchange for bundles of games. Through December the donations continued to grow and over $1 million was given by ‘The Yogscast’ subscribers for the 5 charities. Rotary’s END POLIO NOW project will benefit by £135,000 from subscriber donations and extra sales. Reading Matins President Geoff Poland said, “Matt had a great idea and made everything happen with support from
other club members. This has been a superb effort and demonstrates how members can work together with others to make a real difference.” President Geoff and Matt are delighted that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have pledged to give £2 for every £1 raised by Rotary towards polio eradication. This means that END POLIO NOW will benefit by £405,000 which will make a colossal impact towards their aim of finally eradicating polio worldwide. More information about Rotary in the Reading area is available at www.rotary-in-reading.org.uk or DISC 1090, Gillian Pearce - gpe9708744@aol.com
Medair - Fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone Ebola has brought Sierra Leone to its knees. While many humanitarian organizations are mobilized, few dare to work in the most critical areas – zones with confirmed cases, where medical staff are exposed to high risks. Often these are remote, making action even more difficult. Kuntorloh, in the west of Sierra Leone is in a critical area. Even before Ebola, the area had the country's worst health indicators. Since the outbreak, health centres have suffered loss of staff and there’s widespread fear of Ebola. Many centres have closed and very few can treat Ebola patients. Medair began work in Kuntorloh at the end of 2014. When we arrived, we witnessed horrific scenes; sick people were locking themselves in their homes with their families, trapped and highly exposed to Ebola which led to entire households then becoming contaminated. Heartbreakingly, a large majority of them did not survive. Thanks to some very generous donors, we have been able to start fighting the virus by acting on three key priorities: 1. Reducing the risk of contamination Our prevention teams go from village to village communicating key messages so communities know the symptoms of the disease, how to protect themselves with our infection prevention kits, and the importance of reporting suspected cases as early as possible. 2. Treating patients Local medical staff are overwhelmed by the scale and complexity of this epidemic. We’ve worked to establish an Ebola isolation and treatment centre in Kuntorloh to save many lives by rehydrating sufferers and supplying therapeutic food during periods of fever, diarrhoea, vomiting and sometimes respiratory failure. Treating these patients is dangerous, so we work hand in hand with local staff, training them in security protocols that are specific to this epidemic. 3. Providing daily psychosocial care Rejected by their neighbours, the relatives of Ebola patients are all on their own. Families suffer terribly from this isolation as they not only fear losing a loved one, but also worry about becoming sick
Children orphaned by the Ebola epidemic
themselves, being hungry and being banished from their community forever. This is why each day a team of locally-trained staff is meeting families to provide them with psychosocial support. The current funding gap (money that needs to be found in order for the project to be completed in its entirety) currently stands at £407,650. Each infection prevention kit costs Medair £27, the treatment of each patient already infected by the disease costs £90 and the provision of psychosocial support for one family for a week costs £20. For more information about Medair’s life-saving work in both Sierra Leone and our many other countries of operation; please visit www.medair.org or call Lou Rout on 020 8772 0100.
Menstrual pads from banana leaf fibre Tampons and pads are an economic issue in the developing world. Girls miss school for lack of menstrual products. Even working women often don’t have access to or can’t afford them. All told, women in the developing world lose nearly five years of learning or earning because of this issue. D1150’s Alision Sutherland – ypalison@yahoo.co.uk would welcome feedback from any Club that has experience in using banana fibre, which is absorbent, found locally and often treated as waste.
Disasters The RIBI web site is regularly updated – as Rotarians we naturally look to the long term sustainable help we can provide but naturally think of the ‘NOW’ – please support the Rotary sponsored ‘reactive’ charities in their on-going work to provide shelter and other essential survival items. Projects can be posted on the RI’s crowdsourcing tool site. ‘Rotary Ideas’ and questions about contributing to Ebola relief at an RI level should be sent to relief@rotary.org
Next edition Yes, same image as the editor likes it! Please keep your International news coming in – by sharing details we help remove even more darkness from the world and help Light Up Rotary. The Committee appreciate that the Rotary logos are of both the old and new design, each month small steps towards change are being incorporated, The International Service Committee hopes you find this edition both interesting and informative.
Mike – mjparry111@hotmail.com RIBI International Service Committee Chairman & Editor
Mike Parry - Chairman mjparry111@hotmail.com
Allan Smith allan@smithonweb.com
Colin Ince Colin18270@blueyonder.co.uk
Gordon McGone gordonandlorraine@btinternet.com
Kevin Pitt – Chair, External Funding Committee kevinjpitt@gmail.com
Ron Daniels Ron.daniels@btopenworld.com
Liaison Governor 2014 -15 Wendy Watson