Humanity in Motion 2

Rotarians Down Under – helping out at home...

... and around the world.

Projects of Rotary International Districts ‘Down Under’

What is Rotary?

Rotary had its beginnings in 1905 when Chicago lawyer, Paul Harris (pictured) started meeting each week with three friends, to socialise and network.

This led to them looking for ways in which to help others (the over-riding concept of Rotary). The name was derived from them rotating their weekly meetings between each other’s office.

From this humble beginning has grown an organisation with 34,005 clubs around the world – with each and every member donating their time and talents to serve both their own community and those in need around the world.

Membership of Rotary clubs is open to men and women of every ethnic group, political persuasion, language and religious belief. Rotarians are leaders in their field and must have high ethical standards. They share a common purpose – to provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards and help build goodwill and peace in the world.

The power of Rotary is best demonstrated by the success of their biggest ever project: PolioPlus. Rotarians took on the daunting task of eliminating polio from the world. They have not yet reached that goal but the end is now very much in sight.

This magazine contains a selection of humanitarian projects from Rotary clubs around Australia.

There are thousands more projects under way that are equally worthy of recognition.

Why not visit your nearest club and see for yourself what projects they are involved in?

Welcome to our second edition of Humanity in Motion.

In this edition we have featured stories from over 50 different Rotary clubs from around Australia.

These stories of projects both in Australia and overseas show how Rotarians Down Under are working to make this a better world.

Rotary is a large organization with over 1.2 million members Worldwide and around 1,200 Rotary Clubs in Australia alone. The stories featured in this issue are typical of the achievements of the 34,005 Rotary clubs throughout the World.

There are also articles on many of the larger National and International programs of Rotary: youth programs; health programs; disaster relief programs and much more.

We again hope that you, our readers, will be inspired by what Australian Rotarians can achieve in each community.

If you would like to find out more about being a part of this great organisation, there are contact details on the inside back cover.

You can contact the District via the web or by phone. The District will give you the details of the Rotary club in your area. Or call me.

Please consider donating to the Rotary Foundation. Your donation will go toward our humanity, health and educational projects including our No 1 priority – to eradicate Polio.

We have already raised over $1 billion dollars, but still more is needed to finally say good bye to the Polio virus. You can read more about our quest to eradicate Polio in this issue and there is a tear-out section where you can donate to our Foundation (please!)

Happy reading;

Our Cover Stories...

Two exhausted Rotarians surrounded by the total devastation resulting from the Queensland floods.

This was one of Australia’s greatest natural disasters and Rotary was there in great numbers – doing all they could to help those most in need.

Above:

From darkness to Light...

The Rotary Club of Wagga Wagga is helping hundreds of Indians to see again.

Left:

Tony Castley

A Sparkling new school...

Past District Governor, District 9680 Sydney Australia Phone: 0414 801 888

The Rotary Club of Surfers Sunrise built a brand new school in Western Samoa.

Rotarians Down Under – Humanity in Motion

Editor: George Richards Creative Director: Ted Sheedy

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

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Contents: AUSTRALIAN ROTARY HEALTH “The Jewel in Australian Rotary’s Crown”

RYLA Rotary Youth Leadership Awards

61

3

RYPEN Rotary Youth Program of Enrichment

64

SAILABILITY Sailing for the disabled

6

MUNA Model United Nations Assembly

66

RYDA Rotary Youth Driver Awareness

7

69 71 73 74 76 77 78 79 80

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9500 Sailing in the Dust Santa’s Workshop To Market... To Market A Level Playing Field The Adelaide Flotilla Power & Noise Changing Attitudes The Little Book that Saves Lives

9 11 13 15 16 18 19 20

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9680 The School Built from Dog Bones “Children love my Dilly Bag” On the Buses Camps for Gramps A stitch in time for Porgera Ducks & Books ANZAC RYLA in Turkey Reaching out for the Youth in East Timor Helping Women in Crisis

SHELTERBOX Ready when disaster strikes

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ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9520 Rotary Scales the Andes Bringing Health to the mighty Murray What in the world is Porchetta?

Making Goolwa Beach safe for surfers Stirring the dust for the Flying Doctors

RAM Rotarians Against Malaria

81

25 27 28 29 30

INTERPLAST Surgeons Fixing Broken Smiles

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ROMAC Rotary Oceana Medical Aid for Children

85

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9600 The First Rotary Oz Day Desks for Gizo Rotarians Indulge in Thespian Tendencies A Drteam to Walk Leads a Mind to Run Bisley Farm

31 32 33 34 35

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9690 Lest We Forget Connecting With Seniors The ‘Pocket Pickets’ Padstow on Parade The Gnome Convention

87 88 89 90 91

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9630 Toowoomba’s Flexi School Queensland’s Floods Rotary’s Flood Fightback Monster Garage Sale “Gimme 5c”

37 39 41 43

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9700 Teaching Teachers in Nepal Turning Darknesss into Light Give Peace a Chance Science and Engineering Challenge

93 96 98 99

Rotary Youth Exchange An international exchange for students

45

Group Study Exchange Young professional learn from travel

50

Donations In Kind All donations welcome

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ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9640 Rotary Makes Beautiful Music Rotary Flies in the ’Copters A Sparkling New School Rotary Targets Our Young Drivers Wheelchairs Change Lives Scanning for Good Health

53 55 56 58 59 60

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ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9710 Rotary Runs the Farmers Market Dialysis in the Desert Rotary Helps Create a Garden of Delights A Paradise in Dire Need of Help Garden Gnomes do their bit to Beat Polio Rotary Packs Christmas Hampers with Love

101 103 104 106 107 108

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9790 Rebels Against Drugs Tough Times Kids Down On the Farm A Paradise in Dire Need of Help

109 111 112 114

WOMEN IN ROTARY The battle has truly been won 115 ROTARY FOUNDATION Rotary’s Program to Eliminate Polio The Rotary Foundation Trust

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It was May, 1981 and the 51st Congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS) was being held in Brisbane.

One of the convention participants was Professor Alan Williams, Chief Pathologist at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital.

Alan Williams’ was interviewed on a latenight commercial broadcasting station. His distress and frustration was evident as he repeated to his radio listeners what he had been telling his medical colleagues at ANZAAS about that dreaded phenomenon known as “Cot Death” or “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome”.

A listener to that broadcast was Ian Scott, a member of the Rotary Club of Mornington, Victoria, who was so moved, so deeply troubled by what Alan Williams had said, that he resolved to take some action.

At the next meeting of his Rotary club he spoke briefly about the tragedy of cot death and the need for research, suggesting that Rotary should do something about it. He then proposed that the Rotary Club of Mornington establish a national Rotary research foundation with a corpus of $2 million to provide essential funds for health research, with the initial grants to be allocated for research into cot death.

He managed to get the club to agree to the plan and then set out to put a committee together from senior, experienced Rotarians. His committee included such Rotary luminaries as Royce Abbey (who later became a Rotary World President), and a number of Past District Governors from Districts 978, 968 and 982.

They established a charity which they christened: The Australian Rotary Health Research Fund.

In 1985, just four years after the fund had been established, the board allocated its first grant: up to $100,000 for research into Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Thirty years on, the Fund (now simply known as Australian Rotary Health) has grown to become one of Australia’s larest source of funds for medical research in Australia, with grants now totalling over $20,000,000.

All administrators of the fund are Rotarians and they are guided by a Research Committee made up of leading medical professionals. Grants allocated include: muscular dystrophy; alzheimer’s disease; health problems of the aged; and adolescent health problems to name a few.

Mental Health

In recent times, the Fund has made mental illness – particularly depression, its main focus.

Mental illness is one of the fastest growing illnesses throughout the world and it is estimated that one in five Australians will, at some time in their lives, be affected by some form of mental illness.

Continued overleaf

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Australian Rotary Health instigated and organised Mental Health Forums throughout Australia. The focus of the Forums was to remove the myths and stigma associated with mental illness and the number of people who attended was testimony to the widespread need in the community.

Mental Health Forums

Mental Health First Aid

One of the biggest problems has been the myths and stigma associated with mental illness and Australian Rotary Health has helped to dispel those myths with mental health forums in workplaces, cities and country towns.

It is almost inevitable that every member of our society has some association with at least one person suffering a mental disorder; but past surveys have found that most members of the public lack the knowledge or understanding which would help them to recognise the illness and enable them to offer assistance.

Professor Anthony Jorm, Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne Youth Health Research Centre, in close collaboration with researcher/ teacher/counsellor Betty Kitchener, decided to take some positive action.

One of the difficulties they had in devising a training course in Mental Health First Aid was that there were no guidelines specifying the subjects to be taught and the methods of instruction. What is the best way, for example, to help someone who is suicidal or having a panic attack? With conventional first aid, international guidelines show how to do CPR or provide first aid for snakebite. It was obvious that similar international guidelines were needed for Mental Health First Aid and together, they have created a Mental Health First Aid training program that is now available as an e-learning Compact Disc.

For her pioneering work in Mental Health First Aid, Betty Kitchener was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2008.

One in five Australians is affected by depression at some time of their lives. Depression has now become one of the biggest health problems world-wide.

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Ian Scott Scholar, India Bohanna, is researching the early diagnosis of Huntingtons Disease.

Doctor Verity Stirling was the recipient of an Australian Rotary Health Rural Health Scholarship.

Research Scholarships.

The first Ian Scott Scholar to complete her research leading to the award of a PhD was Dr Melanie Porter, with a First Class Honours Degree and a Master’s Degree in neuropsychology from Macquarie University Her research was Cognitive and socio-motion abilities in Williams Syndrome, autism, Asberger’s Syndrome and Down Syndrome. The main focus was Williams Syndrome WS) – a genetic condition. “Imagine thinking that everyone in the world is your friend,” said Dr Porter.

“This is a common belief in Williams syndrome – a rare genetic disorder”.

Post Doctoral Scholarships The emphasis on mental health did not signal the neglect of other fields of research and, throughout the years, after 2001, Australian Rotary Health continued to support research into numerous health and healthrelated areas. Many Rotary clubs, however, while fully aware of the urgent need for mental health research and education, still wished to see more funding of research projects in which they had a particular interest.

Out of this desire by clubs and districts arose the Funding Partners program, in which a Rotary club or district and Australian Rotary Health share the cost of providing a research project or a PhD scholarship.

This has enabled ongoing research programs such as arthritis and organ transplants to proceed.

Rural Health Scholarships In 2007 Australian Rotary Health awarded 28 scholarships, valued at $5,000, to medical students attending 14 rural clinical schools in Australia. This was a pilot for three years, the aim of which was to encourage medical students to complete at least one year in a rural area in the hope that they might be influenced to consider entering medical practice in rural Australia.

Indigenous Podiatrist, James Charles, at work.

Indigenous Scholarships Australian Rotary Health first introduced special programs for indigenous people in 2003 when the board awarded 25 scholarships Australia-wide. The object of the program was to provide scholarships so that students could undertake courses in a wide range of health-related professions.

The indigenous scholarships program became a co-operative project of Rotary clubs, Australian Rotary Health, the Australian Government and the relevant government department in each State or Territory. Within two years 50 scholarships had been awarded, 23 of them to medical students. Other scholars were enrolled in bio-medical engineering. health science, midwifery, nursing, physiotherapy, podiatry, psychology, and social work.

Editor’s note: This copy was directly taken from extracts of the book: “With Health in Mind – the story of Australian Rotary Health” by Paul Hennigham.

For more information: www.australianrotaryhealth.org.au Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

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“There is no more rewarding thing in life than the look on a disabled person’s face when you take them sailing”.

Volunteer Sailor, Rotarian and member of Sailability Middle Harbour

Above: Sally enjoys the wind in her hair and the sun on her face. Right: A ride on the rescue boat with ‘Toby’ and her friends is a bonus.

Sailability did not start as a Rotary project but its aims so complemented Rotary’s desire to help those in need that many clubs in Australia and around the world have adopted this wonderful humanitarian project.

The great thing about Sailability is that the volunteers have as much fun as the people they take sailing, with Rotarians and non Rotarians alike learning to sail in these extremely stable boats.

So, sailors or not, Rotarians or not, if you love the water and enjoy helping others, contact your nearest Sailability club.

For more information visit: www.sailability.org/au/ 6

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Road tragedy triggers a lifesaving program It was a tragedy in 2000 that rocked the whole of the Hills District in Sydney – four teenagers killed when the 4WD vehicle one of them was driving smashed into a vehicle driven by a woman, who was seriously injured.

The driver of the boys’ car was an inexperienced P-plater.

Local Rotary Club members and other concerned citizens decided that something must be done to help young people to be better prepared when they start to drive or be passengers in vehicles driven by their friends. This was the beginning of the Rotary Youth Driver Awareness (RYDA) road safety education program – a community road safety initiative to deliver practical road safety information targeting “attitude and awareness” of young drivers and passengers to help stop the tragic loss of young people in road crashes.

Road crash statistics offer a telling message: Young people aged 17-25 years represent less than 15% of the population, yet account for around 25% of people killed

or seriously injured in road crashes.

Getting behind the wheel of a motor vehicle remains the single most dangerous thing a young Australian can do.

The first RYDA Program was conducted at St Ives in Sydneybased Rotary District 9680 in March 2001. RYDA is now conducted at over 50 venues in all States of Australia and is also well established in New Zealand. RYDA has grown to be the largest national road safety education program for young people in Australia and to date more than 175,000 students have received the potentially lifesaving RYDA message.

RYDA is facilitated by local Rotary clubs in partnership with the national office of RYDA Australia Limited and presented by road safety professionals including police and driving instructors.

RYDA Australia Program Director Greg Rappo says that the recently updated RYDA Program has been developed in consultation with relevant education and road safety authorities and is designed to complement and supplement the school curriculum and government road safety messages. Mr Rappo said RYDA targets Continued overleaf

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senior high school students aged 16 to 18 and at the stage of their lives where they start to drive or ride in a vehicle driven by their friends.

The RYDA Program is conducted at an out of school venue that makes the day special and dramatically highlights the road safety message. Sydney RYDA venues are at St Ives, Sydney Olympic Park and Penrith with 25 other venues across NSW including major programs at Wyong on the Central Coast and Albion Park in the Illawarra region.

RYDA includes six sessions that are designed to be interactive and cover a broad range of topics including a session that helps students to identify and minimise distractions and to explore their perception of hazards on the road.

Students have an opportunity to design their own “safe” car and to participate in an interactive workshop on the impact that alcohol, drugs and fatigue have on driving ability. Under the theme of My Life-My Choices, students explore a wide range of issues that young people need to be aware of before getting behind the wheel or travelling in a motor car.

At RYDA, students also get to meet and speak with a person who has experienced a devastating road crash; to see and feel the distance it takes to stop a vehicle travelling at different speeds and to realise that an extra 10 kph can, in some circumstances, have tragic consequences.

The RYDA Program includes a powerful and emotional video on the life and tragic death of an 18-year-old girl – provided by her parents after she was killed in a road smash following her birthday partrty. The video is presented by a Police officer who encourages 8

Young drivers learn a great deal during their time at RYDA – includiong the fact that most cops are really good guys! students to discuss what factors contribute to road crashes and to consider the “ripple effect” of a road crash on family and friends.

The RYDA program is made available to students at only a nominal cost due to the outstanding support of Rotary clubs across Australia and good corporate citizens such as the RYDA Founding Sponsor, BOC. Through the RYDA Program, Rotary is helping to make our roads a safer place for young people and indeed all others in our community.

For further information please contact Greg Rappo at RYDA Australia Limited – Email: gregr@ryda.org.au Telephone 1300 127 642 or visit the website: www.ryda.org.au

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Rotary International District 9500 Governor 2010-11: Ed King

Rotary International District 9500 covers some 1,700,000 square kilometres of South Australia & Northern Territory – from Kangaroo Island to the Alice. There are approximately 1,400 Rotarians in the 51 active Clubs that make up District 9500. For more information phone: 08 8447 5989.

SAILING

IN THE

DUST

Central Australia used to be known as the Dead Heart, but a lot of people have worked hard to overcome that view. And Rotarians are some of them.

Main picture: A battle royal between two large vessels.

Above: Pirates ready to attack!

In 1962, Reg Smith and his fellow Alice Springs Rotarians were discussing ways to make money for Rotary projects. Reg proposed they hold a regatta along the lines of famous boat races such as those between Cambridge and Oxford Universities along the Thames, the Head of the River on the Thames, and the elegant regattas held at Henley-on-Thames.

The largest body of water being some 1,500km from the Alice was no problem. The inventiveness necessary sometimes to survive in the Centre came to the fore instead of rowing the boats, people could run with them along the dry bed of the Alice’s Todd River. The Rotary Club of Alice Springs took up the idea, and the first boats hit the “water” in the first regatta in December 1962.

Henley-on-Todd, aka HoT, is now a joint project of the three Rotary Clubs in Alice Springs - Alice Springs, Alice Springs Mbantua and Stuart.

Now, 50 years later, bigger than ever, HoT starts with a parade down Todd Mall. Then follows a program of madcap events where seemingly sane people race in bottomless “eights”, “oxford tubs”, “bath tubs” and “yachts” through the deep coarse sand of the Todd River.

Continued overleaf

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It’s a unique spectacle among world ‘sporting’ events, and often ends up on world TV news and Facebook..

Spectators cannot get enough of boats colliding, runners eating the sand or getting bogged. Over the years extra events have been added to the program to ensure plenty of thrills and spills - boats on rails to rescue damsels in distress, sand shovelling for iron men and women are examples. Local and international participants paddle canoes with sand shovels and in an “iron man” contest fill 44-gallon drums with sand. They roll huge wire wheels in the Cycling Tour d’ Todd.

At the end of almost five hours of madness and mayhem, the Battle Boat Spectacular finishes the day. Normally mature, conservative Rotarians and business people suddenly morph into ‘Vikings,’ ‘Pirates’ and ‘Naval sailors’ and on motorised ‘gunboats’ do battle with flour bomb ‘mortars’ and water cannons. The crowd then decides the winner!

The Rotary Henley-On-Todd Regatta has been sponsored by Assa Abloy, the global locks company, for the past 10 years and the clubs hope to continue the wonderful association into the future. It is run entirely by volunteers by the three Rotary Clubs in Alice Springs. The proceeds - well over a million dollars - have been allocated to local, national and international humanitarian projects.

August 20 2011 is the 50th anniversary of the HoT. For more information: www.henleyontodd.com.au Above: The Crown Plaza boys find the going tough.

Above Left: The Lockwood boys take a tight corner.

Left: Henley-On-Todd is fun for ALL ages.

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Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

If you haven’t got a boat – a bath tub will do.

It’s full steam ahead for the crew from Lasseters.

A cooling squirt for some over-heated ladies.

The magnificent Viking ship plows through the dust.

Not only did they forget to vote – it looks like they missed the start!

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Santa’s workshop ...and his little helpers – the Toy Boys

Affectionately known as The Toy Boys, a group of retired men work together throughout the year to produce beautifully finished wood toys, to go out just before Christmas to deserving children in South Australia.

As all Aussie men should have a shed, so this project of the Rotary Club of Charles Sturt Grange, South Australia, is housed in one. Most raw materials are donated, and government and local council grants have enabled the purchase of additional equipment, tools, and materials.

Founded in 1992 as a community service project, the Toy Factory has grown considerably over the years in both capability and output.

Preschool children with significant development delay and/or disability require intricate and precisionmade equipment, which challenges them, yet provides enjoyment.

The Toy Boys continue to save the Briar Special Early Learning Centre thousands of dollars by solving technical problems, then creating masterful pieces of equipment. It has been a most rewarding activity, giving the Toy Boys the greatest satisfaction knowing that they have given hours of joy to hundreds of needy children.

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There’s even a Rotary Mower!

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

A couple of Santa’s little helpers hard at work – getting the cute wooden toys finished for Christmas.

A selction of goodies from Santa’s workshop.

A picture of concentration.

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To Market...

to Market

Put together three organisations: Rotary, Catholic Family Services, Centacare and the Adelaide Central Markets – and good things are sure to come about.

Centacare helps more than 30,000 homeless families and individuals around Adelaide who have no permanent home. Many are young people, some mothers with babies who find themselves unable to live at their usual home. Centacare provides temporary accommodation and teaches them living skills such as learning to prepare nutritious inexpensive meals, finding work and eventually, finding their own home.

The Rotary Club of Adelaide West, seeking a project that provided opportunities for uncomplicated, handson assistance, joined Centacare to create the Central Adelaide Homeless Project helping part of Centacare’s wider client base.

And Adelaide Central Market Traders Association became the third partner, with members giving quantities of fresh produce to support Centacare’s work.

Rotarians make fortnightly collections of fresh meat, fruit and vegetables, cheese, bread, baked goods and yoghurt from the markets. It is then delivered to Centacare and distributed to about 60 people a week.

In the first 13 collections, the Rotarians collected and distributed over $11,000 worth of fresh produce.

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A Rotary collector leaves the Adelaide Central Markets with a load of foods for Centacare’s clients.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

We should all be on

The Gold medal winners!

a level playing field...

The Rotary Club of Adelaide EDGE is trying to level the playing field for young people from scores of backgrounds by getting them onto the playing field.

It held Level Playing Field, a five-a-side friendly soccer tournament in a fair-like atmosphere in the Adelaide Parklands. The fair also promotes fair trade issues, with vendors including Oxfam, coffee sellers, and the Rotary Club’s own catering facility.

Fourteen teams were registered to play, with over 20 nationalities represented. And the Adelaide United soccer team turned up for photos with the players, with giveaways and playing tips. Many of the Level Playing Field players were international students in Adelaide.

The competition was a round-robin, with teams rotating to play against each other throughout the day.

The warm weather did not dampen their enthusiasm.

The aim? To promote multicultural awareness, integration and harmony, and celebrate diversity, fairness and ethical conduct – very Rotarylike indeed.

As well, the day gave an opportunity for Adelaide EDGE and other Rotarians to enjoy networking and socialising both at the Level Playing Field with the participants invited to attend Rotary meetings.

Centre: Game on! Right: A group from all cultures.

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The Adelaide Adelaide The

Flotilla

Yachties take to the water for children with cancer...

When Annette Rogers, now an Honorary Member of the Rotary Club of Adelaide, experienced the anguish of losing a grandchild to cancer, she did something about it.

Annette, an active member of the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron, saw the potential to provide a day of fun and laughter for children with cancer and their families/carers, while also raising much-needed money for their support.

She asked the Rotary Club of Adelaide six years ago to help stage the event, called the Flotilla for Kids. In that time it has raised more than $300,000.

The event involves well over 100 boats from the local yacht squadrons carrying young cancer sufferers and their families, sailing up the Port River from Outer Harbour to the Inner Harbour at Port Adelaide and return.

At the Inner Harbour the boats parade in front of the land-based crowd lining the wharf before returning to Outer Harbour. The Governor of South Australia, RearAdmiral Kevin Scarce, who is also an honorary member of the club, has been a keen supporter of the event.

Initially all the money raised went to Camp Quality.

However, in recent years a proportion of the funds has been directed to Australian Rotary Health to fund research into pediatric cancer.

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This youngster does not seem the least concerned about being left in the care of a band of pirates.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

A skipper chats to his passengers.

You can’t have fun without a clown!

Top left: The clown sets off with mischief on his mind.

Left: The mischievous clown squirts water at the kids.

Above: The kids get their own back on the naughty clown.

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Power & Noise... produce a fantastic result!

Pulling together is how the Rotary Clubs of Gawler and Gawler Light joined forces to run the town’s most successful fundraising event ever – a Tractor Pull.

It involved ear-splitting noise and the sight and sound of super-charged unsilenced engines running at full power. Tractor Pulling is an international sport with major competitions in England, Europe and the US as well as Australia. It brought 5,000 people to the Gawler Paceway on a beautiful day to enjoy the unmatched power of the modified tractors.

The event – the first in the town - was conducted under the auspices of the Australian Tractor Pullers Association. The association holds 10 such annual events around Australia.

Gate and bar takings (it was a thirsty day) were more than $94,000, which with the sponsorships produced a profit close to $70,000.

It was not an easy job. The venue provided a grandstand, car parking and an enclosing fence, but the clubs were otherwise starting from scratch. The venue’s facilities were used to dealing with much smaller crowds so all the extended facilities for food, drink and waste disposal had to be provided.

The track had to be manufactured in the centre of the circuit and all safety fencing, pit lane and entertainment provided for. It was all hands on deck to set up the public address systems, fencing, lighting for spectator access, manning the gates and bars, feeding the competitors and keeping the sponsors happy.

For the environmentally conscious the track was returned in a better condition by mid- afternoon the following day and the Rotary Club of Gawler Light planted around 800 trees to gain carbon credits as penance for the exhaust emissions.

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For obvious reasons the spectators were kept a good distance from the tractors as they churned up the dirt.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Changing attitudes...

Below: The t-shirts put smiles on young faces.

Bottom: A leap of faith for a boy who found new confidence at the Errappa camp.

changes lives! at the Errappa Blue Light Adventure Camp!

How does one comprehend the impact a simple gift of a new t-shirt could have on a young child?

The Rotary Club of Port Pirie, South Australia, knew there were disadvantaged children in town aged from 9 to 13, and that there were no programs in the local community for them.

See the need, fill the gap.

The club carefully selected children for a threeday camp at Errappa Blue Light adventure camp at Iron Knob, run by fully qualified police officers, where the programs targeted team building, self-esteem, leadership skills, self-confidence and a sense of responsibility and respect for oneself and others in the community.

So many children with too many fears! The Rotarians saw the joy of a t-shirt gift, of simple things such as a toothbrush or a shower. The children were encouraged to develop social skills and personal competence, and police and youth relationships were enhanced. And there was time for bonding, resting, and reflection.

At the end, the club received comments such as – • “If only my dad could see me now.”

• “My mum won’t believe how good I was.”

• “I know what respect really means now.”

• “Are you proud of me for doing the flying fox?”

The camp was funded by the club, a grant from The Premier’s Community Initiatives Fund, as well as donations and sponsorships from local businesses and organisations.

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A Little Book that Saves Lives Imagine the scene – paramedics are called to the home of an elderly patient, a chronically ill child, an adult unable to speak because of injury or illness, and the paramedics lose crucial minutes searching for the patient’s medical records, or trying to get a verbal medical history.

Above left: A South Australian paramedic uses the EMIB to get a patient’s history.

Above: A South Australian paramedic retrieves a patient’s EMIB from a perfect spot to keep it – the kitchen fridge.

Rob Snell, a paramedic with the Modbury station of the South Australian Ambulance Service, found he and many of his colleagues were faced with this problem.

He had the idea of households or patients having an Emergency Medical Information Book with the essential information at hand.

“It is essential that paramedics and other health professionals have as much information as possible about their patients’ medical condition,” he says.

The Emergency Medical Information Book was picked up by Rotary, become a community-based project and has saved many lives.

The book was first launched as a pilot project by the Rotary Clubs of Tea Tree Gully, Modbury and Golden Grove. It was very successful in South Australia and is now a national tool for paramedics in all Australian States and New Zealand.

The book contains all the information needed, including medical conditions, prescribed medications,

and GP, medical and carer contacts if a patient is admitted to hospital. Not bad value for a gold coin donation!

Many book owners have asked for additional copies, so they can use them at work or when travelling on holiday. Some organisations running out-door activities have required participants to obtain and fill out the book with relevant information.

The national roll-out of the project was coordinated

by Rotarians from the Tea Tree Gully Club, who created a marketing package and made initial contact with national ambulance services. The positive acceptance by paramedics and medical institutions throughout Australia has seen nearly a million books being distributed since its launch.

Many Australian Rotary clubs have adopted distribution of the EMIB as a community service project.

The website www.emib.org.au publishes many articles and responses from distributors and users.

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Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Worldwide

DISASTERS

Christchurch – devastated by earthquake. Northern Japan – crushed by earthquake, smashed by a tsunami and in danger of nuclear horror. Colombia and Bolivia – swept by floods. U.S. towns – blown apart by tornadoes.

Haiti – tens of thousands killed by earthquake.

Common to all these natural disasters are deaths, destruction, misery, and thousands left homeless.

Also common to all is one bright light – aid from Rotary’s ShelterBox disaster relief organisation.

ShelterBox was founded by Tom Henderson – a Rotarian who took his idea to Rotary and turned it into a ShelterBox. Having done that, he turned his hand to an even harder task – creating the organisation that since its founding has brought emergency survival equipment to more than a million people in 50 devastated countries.

ShelterBox delivers boxes of aid, shelter, warmth and dignity to people affected by disasters worldwide. The number supplied by 2011 has reached 106,000 and is constantly rising.

Australian Rotarians have enthusiastically supported ShelterBox. The Rotarian, Tom Henderson, a retired Royal Navy diver, watching television at home in Cornwall in 1999, saw shots of a disaster relief team handing out bread from the back of a truck to disaster victims. He thought there must be a better way of helping people hit by disaster.

Disasters – whatever the cause – often result in huge numbers of people left homeless. The initial challenge is often medical aid and making sure everyone has access to water and food. However, another essential is shelter.

He wrote down some ideas – keep the family together (so help for a 10-person unit was necessary), sleeping bags, tools, a multi-fuel stove, water and basic food, and a reusable container.

He took the idea to his Rotary club, Helston Lizard.

The exchange is reported to have been like this “Hey guys, I’ve had an idea which could bring shelter Continued overleaf

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21

and beds to people who have become homeless in disasters around the world. - and all in a single box.”

“Yeah, that sounds a good idea,” they said, “why don’t you look into it?”

He went and sourced all that was needed. - tents, sleeping bags, boxes, equipment, all of the best quality, and, with some arm twisting, at the lowest cost.

ShelterBox was launched by his club in April 2000 and its first 143 ShelterBoxes were flown to the earthquakehit region of Gujarat in India in January 2001. Now, ShelterBox has become one of the most effective aid agencies in the world.

A 84cmx61cmx56cm, 55kg ShelterBox is designed to provide survival equipment for 10 people for up to six months – a 10-person dome tent, thermal blankets or sleeping bags for 10, mosquito nets, ponchos, ground sheets, water purification tablets and containers (the water can also be kept in the box once it’s emptied), a multi-fuel stove, eating utensils, tools, and even a small kit of children’s school supplies. The contents are tailored to be suitable for different regioin – thermal blankets might not be needed in tropical areas, stoves can range from gas-bottles to cow dung for fuel.

By the end of 2004, ShelterBox had sent out nearly 2,600 such boxes and helped around 26,000 people.

Based on what had been achieved that far, the charity set itself an annual target of sending out 900 boxes in 2004-2005.

Then, on December 26 2004, came news of the Boxing Day Tsunami and everything changed. An unprecedented flood of donations meant the small team that had developed at the charity – together with its many loyal volunteers – was able to Top: Even this massive truck was no match for the raging respond on a scale not previously envisaged. tsunami. Above the contents of a ShelterBox. Continued overleaf 22 Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Clockwise from top: Two ladies with their offspring show their delight at finally having a roof over their heads (even if it is a canvas roof).

Japanese volunteers deliver a consignment of ShelterBoxes to the devasted city.

Delivering ShelterBoxes by boat after the Sri Lankan tsunami.

ShelterBoxes being unloaded onto the tarmac from a giant aircraft.

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Top left: A mother prepares a meal on a multi-fuel stove supplied in her ShelterBox. Top right: ShelterBox tents amidst the rubble of what was once a village in Java.

Above: A ShelterBox city in Myanmar.

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In the end, more than 13,000 boxes were sent to the areas hit by the tsunami – providing aid for an estimated 230,000 people. ShelterBox was suddenly a major player in the field of international humanitarian aid.

In 2005, ShelterBox helped 13,000 victims of Hurricane Katrina and provided aid for approaching 140,000 people after a huge earthquake in Pakistan.

When Myanmar (Burma) was devastated by cyclones in 2008, other aid agencies had to struggle to get permission from the junta to help – but ShelterBox was immediately allowed in. A massive earthquake in Pakistan, and civil strife in the Democratic Republic of the Congo brought immediate aid from ShelterBox. ShelterBox team was on the ground in Japan within 24 hours of the 2011 earthquake, assessing needs, arranging shipments from depots around the world, and organising distribution. Christchurch had immediate aid from the ShelterBox depot in Melbourne. The U.S. depot had ShelterBoxes on their way to Haiti within a day.

Tom Henderson, chief executive officer of the organisation, has been honoured by humanitarian and Government agencies throughout the world.

For more information or to make a donation visit www.shelterboxaustralia.org.au or call the ShelterBox Australia donation hotline on 1300 996 038.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Rotary International District 9520 Governor 2010-11: Malcolm Lindquist

Rotary International District 9520 has clubs in a region stretching from Broken Hill in the north to Victor Harbor in the south. It has eight clubs in the Sunraysia area and a further eight clubs along the lower reaches of the River Murray. Another twenty clubs are situated in the eastern and southern suburbs of Adelaide. For more information, please phone: 08 82769380.

Rotary scales the Andes – to get children off to school

In a tiny community high up in the Andes Mountains five hours drive from Cusco, Peru, the Quishuarani village is excited by the arrival of a school bus.

Main picture: The local Priest gives his blessing.

Above: A local boy stands ready to board the the highly festooned bus for its maiden trip to school.

The children dance and sing traditional songs; the elders are excited, and it’s a festival day. The local priest blesses the bus, and the children enjoy their first ride in their very own school 32-seater bus.

It’s all the result of a partnership between the Rotary Club of Stirling, South Australia, and the Rotary Club of Cusco, plus a grant from The Rotary Foundation.

The community of Quishuarani is 4,000 metres above sea level deep in the Andes Mountains. In winter it is bitterly cold, and during November, December, January and February it rains continuously.

In this remote village the children want to go to school, their parents want them to learn, but the local school caters only for children in grades one, two and three. Beyond grade three, the children have to walk for two hours or more to a school in another community.

The people in this community are descendants from the Inca tribes that lived in the mountains long before the Spanish conquistadors arrived some 500 years ago.

Continued overleaf

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The villagers all come out to see the arrival of the “super bus” that will take their children over the mountains to school.

They are peasant farmers, living in very poor conditions. Their houses are built from local stone; they have no electricity or running water to their houses. In spring and summer they produce potatoes and corn and they breed guinea pigs to supplement their high carbohydrate diets.

Things got a bit better for Quishuarani after Stirling Rotarian Trevor McGuirk and his wife Andrea spent time in 2008 as volunteer teachers in Cusco and Trevor attended a meeting of the Cusco Rotary Club. Cusco and Stirling twinned, and when the McGuirks revisited Cusco in 2009, Cusco suggested the bus project.

Stirling provided $10,000, and Cusco and The Rotary Foundation came up with enough to swell the funds

to $US33,000. Besides buying the bus, the project provides driver training, running costs, and maintenance of the bus for two years.

Ten Stirling Rotarians and partners plan to visit Cusco and Quishuarani, meet the children and village elders, and get to ride in the bus their combined assistance has provided.

Above: A Rotarian chats to the villagers.

Left: The excited children wave to their families as they depart for their very first trip to school in a gleaming new bus.

All made possible by the Rotary Clubs of Cusco Peru, Stirling South Australia – and Rotary International.

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Bringing health to the

MIGHTY MURRAY

Bank set out in 2009 to provide the new low-energy “Environmental” and “Sustainability” are two words light globes to Mildura businesses and residents. used widely as communities search for better ways The Rotarians were one of several not-for-profit of doing things. In Sunraysia, the western end of the organisations chosen to participate in the program. The Murray River system, “sustainability” is all about the club’s initial target was to install 4,000 globes, but they mighty Murray River, which is why the Rotary Club of actually installed 6,000 – and were paid $2 a globe to Mildura has been deeply involved in the subject for do it. years.

The low-energy globes save 80 per cent of the Rotary clubs in District 9520, which covers parts of power used by the standard incandescent globe, a western Victoria and eastern South Australia, set up considerable saving for consumers and a reduction in the Rotary Health of the River Forum 13 years ago, and the environmental footprint.

Greg Missen, one of its members has been the coThe Rotary Health of the River Forum has also been ordinator for three years.

Clubs within the district each year sponsor around 40 able to get $7300 from Sustainability Victoria to add Years 9 and 10 students to the forum to learn about river elements to the Sunraysia TAFE’s ‘sustainability trailer’ which runs visual displays of solar power and wind health issues and conservation practices in a series of turbine power generation for school and other groups. sessions on water ecology. They congregate each year at Lake Cullulleraine, in the Mallee, between Mildura and Renmark.

Speakers at the forum are scientists who have been involved in numerous ecology projects such as the study of blue-green algae, acidification of soils, cod and perch breeding cycles and habitats, black water, micro invertebrates and vegetation surveys of the river courses.

Last year, the Rotary Club of Mildura was approached by the National Centre for Sustainability at the Sunraysia Institute of TAFE to form a joint partnership to get funding through the Victorian Government’s sustainability program. The result was a grant of $49,800 to hold a series of workshops with the other Rotary clubs in Sunraysia – for schools-run field day events and work with other sustainability groups.

The Mildura Rotarians have also been Top left: Counting fish. Top right: Fish drum nets. Above: A presentation able to couple sustainability with fundto students, November 2010. raising. The local branch of the Bendigo Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

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“Porchetta” What in the world is Porchetta? ...and what does it have to do with Rotary? Read on...

Every February the Italian community in Adelaide presents, for the enjoyment of Australians of all cultural backgrounds, Carnevale, a two-day Italian fun, food and fair festival at the Adelaide Showground. Carnevale provides an insight into the charms and delights of La Bellissima Italia by showcasing the best of Italian food, art, performance, fashion, engineering and design.

The Rotary Club of Campbelltown (SA) with a membership of diverse cultural backgrounds, including the then President Tony Lagozzino, became involved in Carnevale in 2003. Rotary’s theme that year was “Sow the Seeds of Love” and not surprisingly, Tony Lagozzino encouraged his members to support Carnevale. The club has been involved ever since in a number of ways,

most notably through its food stall and selling tickets in the Carnevale lottery, run by the Co-ordinating Italian Committee, to promote the well-being of elderly ItalianAustralians in our community.

Tony Lagozzino says, “Our members and their partners work really hard selling authentic porchetta, corn, and delightful cakes and coffee to promote traditional Italian fare while at the same time raising funds to support community, national and international projects.” Carnevale introduces Rotary to a wider Adelaide multicultural audience.

Porchetta consists of deboned pig dressed with abundant rosemary, fennel and garlic. It is rolled and cooked to perfection over flaming charcoal on a spit.

At Carnevale it is served on traditional Italian breads as it is in many regions in Italy.

The Rotary Club of Campbelltown once again served porchetta plate servings and porchetta rolls at the last Carnevale and continues to serve our culturally diverse community.

Top: Two master chefs and the chef’s apprentice. Above left: “I hope everyone is hungry!” Above right: Customers in all sizes and ages queue up to get their porchetta.

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Safety for surfers!

Goolwa Beach is one of South Australia’s most popular surfing destinations

It’s wide and sandy but its tidal conditions form a rip which creates problems for swimmers. Most Goolwa residents would know of at least someone who got into difficulty and had to be helped from the surf by other swimmers.

On a good day, as many as 3000 people will be at the beach. But it had no surf lifesaving service for many years.

Then in 2010, four residents, who had been lifesavers in other areas, decided it was time one began.

In July 2010, the four asked the Rotary Club of Goolwa for help. The club chose from the shopping list an inflatable rescue boat at an estimated $25,000, with two motors and a trailer. With a Rotary Foundation grant of $5,000, the club was able to present the boat at the opening of the surf patrol season before Christmas.

It was christened with the obligatory bottle of champagne, by Yvonne, widow of Brian Hurrell, who died on July 25 2010. She also enjoyed a ride in the surf in the new boat. Brian joined Rotary at Port Lincoln in 1969, and was president of that club in 1972. He moved to Thailand in 1973, and was a member of the Bangkok South Club for 32 years before moving to Goolwa.

In January, the club, after a trailer raffle, gave the lifesavers $5010 to establish a Nippers club for junior lifesavers.

Main picture: Rotarians from the Rotary Club of Goolwa with Goolwa Surf Lifesavers with the new Inflatable rescue boat. Centre: Yvonne Hurrell goes for a quick spin in the new boat. Right: Yvonne christening the boat with a bottle of champagne (carefully poured over the bow).

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Rotarians stir the dust for the Flying Doctors!

Rotarians raised dust clouds in outback South Australia, frightened flocks of native birds, disturbed the silence of the bush and left tyre tracks in places that may not have seen such evidence of “civilisation” for years – all to buy a cardiac monitor for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Twenty nine people in 11 4WDs went on a “mystery” trip for eight days, 2,500km from Adelaide to the Birdsville Track, stopping at many points and finally at Roxby Downs..

It was the third 4WD fund-raiser organised by Campbelltown (SA) Rotary Club for the RFDS, all organised by Campbelltown Rotarians Malcolm Hansen, his wife Val and David Tuckwell. Participants were associated with the Rotary Clubs of Campbelltown, Berri, Drouin, and Warragul.

Along the way, outback organisations, including Isolated Children and Parents’ Association, School of the Air, Hospital Auxiliaries, progress associations and bowling clubs, profited by providing meals.

The end result was $22,000 for the RFDS to purchase the Propaq cardiac monitor, with a further $1200 paid to Rotary charities.

The final breakfast was provided by the Roxby Downs RFDS Auxiliary where a cheque for $20,000 was presented to the service.

Mal Hansen said, “Fun was had by all, and while the road conditions caused many changes to the planned route, everyone arrived at the evening destination which was a testimony to the contingency planning.”

Rotarians and friends were saddened by the sudden illness that David Tuckwell suffered after completing the trip. He died on February 6 2011.

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Rotary International District 9600 Governor 2010-11: Eric A. Wood

Rotary International District 9600 comprises that part of South-East Queensland north of the Brisbane River to Gympie and west to Kingaroy; all of Papua New Guinea, The Solomon Islands and the Republic of Nauru. The District is comprised of 66 Rotary Clubs – Queensland 52; Papua New Guinea 11; Solomon Islands 2 and Nauru 1 – with approximately 1800 members.

The First Rotary Oz Day When the Rotary Club of Ashgrove/The Gap was granted a small piece of land to form Wilcannia Park, in the western suburbs of Brisbane, the club saw a wider use for it. Water was laid on, levelling carried out, a flagpole erected and amenities installed, so that the first Rotary-sponsored Australian citizenship ceremony could be held there in 1995.

The then Club President, Dai Mason, and the Community Service team, headed by Stewart Wallace, saw that the conventional citizenship ceremony at Brisbane City Hall could be improved. They decided to invite newcomers to the suburbs of Ashgrove and The Gap, to have their citizenship ceremony at a genuine Australian setting – Wilcannia Park.

Twenty people became Australian citizens in the first Rotary-hosted celebration that began in a quintessentially Australian way – with a barbecue breakfast. Guests included the local Federal and State MPs and the local Brisbane Council alderman.

Tents were erected in the park the night before, with Scouts keeping guard overnight, then at 6 am, Rotarians and partners appeared to set up tables, barbecues and sound equipment. Soon there was the inviting smell of cooking bacon, eggs and sausages.

The official ceremony began with the raising of the Australian, State, Council and Rotary flags with an accompanying honour guard of local scouts and concluded with the singing of the National Anthem. The applicants were each

Above: A group of proud new citizens of Australia from the 2009 ceremony.

presented with a small token by the Rotary club.

Over the years, the response to the Rotary Club of Ashgrove’s Australia Day ceremony was so strong that Wilcannia Park was no longer big enough, and in 2007 the ceremony moved to the much larger Wittonga Park in Hilder Road , The Gap. The 2011 ceremony, for 35 new Australians from 12 countries, came in the middle of Queensland’s disastrous floods, and the ceremony had to be held in the local high school hall.

Around 16,000 people become citizens each Australia Day at more than 300 ceremonies across Australia – and many of them are now hosted by Rotary.

Early morning Australia Day at Wittonga Park.

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Desks for

Gizo

HAD A DOUBLE BENEFIT! Many Rotary projects start small, but grow into something larger than intended, and have rewarding results way in advance of the original hopes.

Such a project was the supply of desks to the Gizo Community School, Solomon Islands, Western Province.

It was completed as planned, but in the process helped a local tradesman to expand and provide local employment. .

Gizo is the capital and main commercial centre for the Western Province, about two hours’ flying time north-west of Honiara.

The resources of the Solomon Islands government are limited, making it difficult to service the needs of the many villages scattered across 600 islands.

When the Rotary Club of Ashgrove/The Gap planned to supply desks to the Gizo Community School it decided to have the desks made by a Gizo tradesman to Education Department specifications, using all local materials, instead of shipping materials, or even the finished desks, from Australia.

The local tradesman chosen was Shenald Vella, who already had provided volunteer assistance to various Rotary project teams, and he used machinery donated to the area by Rotary after a tsunami struck the Western Province on April 2, 2007.

Funding of A$2000 was supplied from Rotary District

9600, augmented by A$500 from the Rotary Club of Ashgrove/The Gap, which supports Western Province programs financially and by providing volunteers for various projects. This translated into SI$1,500, enabling 42 desks to be built.

Handover Day was attended by a Provincial Government representative, representatives from the Education Department, the Gizo Rotary President., and the media. Publicity in The Solomon Star, and recognition of the quality of the workmanship that went into the desks, rewarded Shenald Vella – he received a contract from UNICEF to provide desks for other schools in the Province. He was able to extend his workshop and so employ local labour. Rotarians have since coached Shenald in business management systems.

Name a community help project and at least one of the 32,000 Rotary clubs throughout the world is probably sponsoring it, with local members volunteering resources and their time to make it work. When it works, the benefit to local individuals and their community often flows far beyond the goal that was set at the beginning.

Have fun on...

and raise awareness of, and funds for, mental health research.

Hat Day is in May every year! For details go to: www.hatday.com.au 32

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

‘Hat Day’ is a project of Australian Rotary Health, one of Australia’s largest provider of funds for health research.

Rotarians indulge in

thespian tendencies Since it was established 52 years ago, the Rotary Club of Maleny has run and supported projects of many kinds – but until recently, few, if any of its 38 members would have imagined they would be indulging in thespian tendencies to benefit the community in their biggest, most enjoyable, fund-raising venture.

But in 2009/2010 the Club decided to pursue the production of a brand new comedy musical “Up the Tiber without a Toga.”

It all started with discussions while on a bike ride in 2008 by a Maleny Rotarian Bob Hall, with a talented composer, Paul Coppens, and a friendship with a talented playwright, John Cundill. It became a reality in October 2010 with five performances at the Caloundra Events Centre for audiences of more than1500 people.

It involved the 18-strong Brisbane Chamber Orchestra, a cast of 40 amateurs and professional singers, including tenor Chris Fennessy in the starring role of Marcus Antony, and an African group of Rwandan drummers and singers called Imanzi. Audiences were blown away by the exuberance of the cast and the sounds of the orchestra and the final bow was to loud applause.

The club decided that proceeds should go to The Rotary Foundation and Rotary Australia World Community Service, the conduits for providing Rotary support for projects around the world, including ShelterBox and PolioPlus..

Above: ShelterBox on display. Top Right: The final curtain.

An independent, charitable company was set up to oversee the production with a board that included three Rotarians and two members of the community who have strong creative skills and theatre experience.

The club’s job was to construct and paint the scenery, feed the cast at rehearsals, design the programme, seek sponsorships and undertake publicity, “bump in and bump out” the scenery and props, work as ushers and sell programmes. The club also found 12 people to underwrite the initial production costs.

President Rick Vickers, and Rotarian Bob Hall, who became the overall production manager, even walked the streets in togas to advertise the production.

A sponsorship deal with a local newspaper resulted in publicity along the Sunshine Coast and into the Hinterland; a ShelterBox was displayed in the theatre foyer; and a Powerpoint about Rotary was shown prior to the show. RI President Ray Klinginsmith sent a new Rotary video “Come Join Us”, which was played during the interval.

This innovative project gave a lot of pleasure to hundreds of people and raised over $21,000 for Rotary’s humanitarian programs; and Coppens and Cundill, the creators, who donated the musical to the club, hope that it will now be produced in other parts of Australia as a fundraiser for good causes.

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A dream to walk leads a mind to run The story of K’Chin tells of a journey from hopping hopelessness to confident, walking success. It tells of a devastating accident as a one-month-old baby in Vietnam that left him with a severe, separated fracture of the two bones of his lower right leg and his becoming a school captain at a leading Brisbane college and the Queensland Educational Training International Student of the year.

This unbelievable change of fortune seemed unlikely when Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC) first brought K’Chin to Brisbane in September 2002 as an undernourished, undersized 13-year-old. He had come from a dysfunctional background, had never been to school and faced a bleak future.

The first thing he had to do was find a position in a solid, supportive family. Rotarians Elaine and Noel Morgan, of New Farm in Brisbane, have been more than foster parents to K’Chin ever since he arrived.

The next part of the journey was a round of 16 operations and other procedures at Brisbane’s Royal Children’s Hospital where surgeons and their teams tried to save his leg.

It is a great ROMAC objective to be able to work in cooperation with hospital staff to help fulfil an individual’s dream of walking again. But one goal leads to another, and during that protracted process K’Chin, who had never been to school, gained his first experience of education at the hospital school, revealing a huge thirst for knowledge.

K’Chin with surrogate mum Elaine Morgan and his Hogan House Award at St James College.

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K’Chin’s original injury. The fractures were never set and by the time he was brought to Brisbane, bone growth was out of control.

He spoke the dialect Kho but not Vietnamese, but proved a willing student and now speaks Vietnamese and fluent English. He welcomes the chance to solve mathematical problems and to study other interests.

He had further complications when he returned to Vietnam in 2006, and in 2007 had to return to Brisbane’s Wesley Hospital for another round of surgery. He now wears a prosthesis, which was not the original goal, but is a good solution.

It means that his feet are the same size and when wearing his jeans, no one would know, especially when you see him scampering down stairs.

K’Chin at 21 now has a student visa and has been accepted as a student by St James College in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley where he has been nominated as school captain for 2011 and given a school award for spirit. He also received the Queensland Education and Training International Student of the Year Award in 2010 in his first year of formal education.

Noel and Elaine are still supporting K’Chin as he looks forward to his second year of formal education at St James College. “His drive and determination amazes me,” Elaine said.

Rotary, medical staff, his schools, and the Morgans all did a lot, but the praise is greatest for K’Chin.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

BISLEY FARM:

“a Cow of a Job!” The Rotary Club of Bribie Island became a 100% Paul Harris Fellow club this year after raising $20,000 for The Rotary Foundation’s “End Polio Now” project – representing $1 for every man woman and child living on Bribie Island!

All members are now more aware of the Rotary Foundation and it prompted the club to initiate this novel endeavour.

A joint venture with Arethusa College (a special school) and Foodbank, this cattle breeding project aims to assist both disenfranchised youth and the needy in the community.

The concept was conceived by current Club President George Grant and was fully embraced by the Bribie Island members The project focused on all of the criteria for a successful application for a Rotary Foundation grant in that it addressed the mental health and educational needs of the students as well as alleviating poverty through the provision of processed meat to Foodbank for distribution to the needy through service delivery charities. It is also self sustainable into the future.

Continued overleaf Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

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Female cattle are retained to increase the herd while steers are used for beef production.

The application was successful and the club received a district grant of $5,000 from the Rotary Foundation to supplement club funds to initiate the programme.

The projects effectiveness was further acknowledged by Schools First Awards, a partnership between the National Australia Bank, the Foundation for Young Australians and the Australian Council for Educational Research when it awarded a local impact award of $50,000 to Arethusa College. These awards are designed to encourage schools to form a partnership with a community organization to extend their capacity to provide assistance to their students.

The College said the focus on animal-assisted therapy is an effective tool in helping disengaged young people develop empathy and responsibility.

Not only do the students benefit from involvement 36

The students feed the cattle – Rotarians feed the students. in the rearing of cattle and their preparation for market, but the needy in the community receive free meat, distributed by Foodbank, from the cattle slaughtered.

The Club and College are now concentrating on increasing the herd numbers while seeking further leasehold land to accommodate an expanding herd.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Rotary International District 9630 Governor 2010-11: Anne Brand

Rotary International District 9630 is a mixture of city, provincial and western Clubs. The District extends from south of the Brisbane River including the Redlands area of Moreton Bay, south to Beenleigh, west to Ipswich and then to Charleville and south to St George. The District has a membership of 1250 Rotarians in 47 Clubs.

Toowoomba’s

FLEXI SCHOOL

“When I got kicked out of home it was good to have people I could talk to.”

“Here they help me one-on-one and I can learn.”

When a school draws these comments from troubled students, it must be doing something right.

Rotary has been a major part of a community partnership in such a school, Flexi School, Toowoomba, Queensland - known more frequently as just Flexi. The school provides education opportunities for young people who have significant social and emotional disadvantages – homelessness, a criminal record, mental illness, drug-taking – that make it difficult for them to handle being at mainstream schools, often dropping out, and often in trouble with the law.

Students are aged 15 to 17, and come from a wide range of backgrounds across the district to access the difference that Flexi provides.

The Flexi School was born in 1998. Its early days were very rough and ready, as it was housed in rented premises, staffed wholly by volunteers and equipped with second-hand furniture and education materials that were donated as being out of date.

In 2001, the Rotary Club of Toowoomba East and Toowoomba City Council joined forces to move a disused building (donated by a club member), to Council land and renovate it to create the current school. The club provided $60,000 to establish the new youth facility (and has continued support ever since) and the Toowoomba Regional Council has sponsored it to the tune of $200,000.

For its first years, the young people worked as distance education students but from 2006, Flexi has been an annexe of Centenary Heights State High School.

The University of Southern Queensland now offers access and pathways for Flexi students who want to go on to tertiary studies, and gives its own student teachers and academic staff opportunities to undertake research at Flexi into alternative education.

Toowoomba Older Men’s Network provides support Continued overleaf

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The school building, once this run down Telstra training centre, is now making a more valuable contribution to Toowoomba. through mentoring students, especially in life skills and self-expression through conversation, and raises funds for equipment.

After 10 years, Flexi has shown these results: • 95% of graduates are employed or participating in further learning.

• There is an average attendance rate of 90%.

• Five per cent of students are participating in a tertiary preparation program to make them eligible for university entry.

• In 2010, Flexi won the NAB Schools First program at national level, and for 2008, 2009 and 2010 made the finals of the Queensland-wide Showcase Awards for Excellence in Education.

Students are mentored in various life skills.

One-on-one mentoring from senior residents is very helpful to the students – and much appreciated.

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All very good – but the best results are those for each individual student. Just take what one student says – Amie, who graduated from Flexi 2008: “My teachers at the Flexi School tailored the subjects to suit me and explained what I had to do. They gave me a chance to do the work at my own pace. I know that they care about me and will support me when I need it. I would not be where I am today without Flexi School.”

Amie has been in 46 foster-care families over 17 years. She is currently living independently in a shelter for homeless youth, and attending University of Southern Queensland and writing her first novel.

Others - Trevor: “It’s easier to work here because we get extra help. I find school work hard so I used to muck up at my last school, but here they help me one-on-one and I can learn.”

Jade: “You can talk to the teachers one-to-one and they are very supportive.”

Sydney: “When I got kicked out of home it was good to have people I could talk to, I reckon they care, they helped me find food and clothes.”

“They don’t care about your past here, they just talk about your future.”

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

BEFORE...

This story chronicles the activities of the Rotary Club of Jindalee during the January 2011 floods in Brisbane.

It is but one example of the wonderful community spirit that arose during this time of dreadful hardship.

Sunday 9th of January 2011: A torrential downpour occurred resulting in flooding through the streets of Toowoomba.

Tuesday 11th January:

AFTER...

The people in Brisbane started to hear reports of flood predictions for the Brisbane and Bremer Rivers – and of particular interest to the members of the Rotary Club of Jindalee, flooding was also expected at Jindalee and the broader Centenary Suburbs.

Not since a major flood in 1974 had the suburb seen water of any consequence in the streets and it took a while for these predictions to be taken seriously. This was not helped, with a popular urban myth stating that “Brisbane won’t flood again, Wivenhoe Dam will prevent it”.

Despite this, anyone who drove over the Jindalee Bridge that day and saw the water levels and the amount of debris floating down the river, was left with no doubt that something big was about to happen.

The Rotary Club of Jindalee has several members who live on or near the river and without any specific organisation, several other members began helping them move furniture and possessions to higher ground.

As night fell, the river continued to rise and by about 9pm, water was entering the streets and some were starting to close. At around 1am travel became almost impossible .

Wednesday 12 January: About 11am, President Warren Oates was called by local councillor Matthew Bourke to see if the club would set up and manage an evacuation centre at the Good News Lutheran School. The brief was to provide accommodation for as many people as possible, while also providing a staging point for a much larger evacuation centre at QE2 Stadium.

Jindalee club members and the Lutheran Church School assessed potential numbers and needs for food, toilets, showers, beds etc. The centre was now open.

They figured they could organise enough food for up to 200 people, but the biggest risk was loss of power for fridges and security lighting. Loss of power would reduce the centre’s capacity to about 50 people. Any more would have to be evacuated to QE2 Stadium to which access was reduced to a single route when the main highway was cut.

At 2pm the power went out, but only about 15 people were in the centre – hundreds must have been accommodated by friends, relatives and strangers.

Local supermarkets were being ordered to close but donations from them brought in more food, particularly staples such as bread, milk and sausages – and there were more than a dozen high quality cakes and tortes, too. The local fruit and veg shop opened its doors and said “take whatever you need”.

Brisbane City Council’s disaster management centre Continued overleaf

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Picture courtesy: Courier Mail.

These young men used their canoe to save a few pieces of furniture from the raging flood waters. organised a small generator, which provided sufficient power for security lighting, then two larger units arrived from Tweed Heads about 1am. The fridges could now be used to keep the donated food cold.

Wednesday night saw a peak in the flood and evacuee numbers at the centre rose to 33, including a family of six, who were rescued by the SES at about 2am and a young Turkish woman whose flight arrived in Brisbane just after midnight and who turned up at the centre at about 3am. Many more had been taken to the larger centre at QE2 Stadium.

Thursday 13 January: Thursday dawn came and the enormity of the situation hit home. Most inundated homes were still inaccessible, but a couple could be reached, as waters had started to recede.

Communications were suffering, particularly the mobile phone network. The Jindalee Rotary grapevine worked to some extent and cleanup work began on the few members’ houses that could be reached.

By the afternoon, access was still an issue and the mobile network was essentially non-existent. Power was still out with no time frame for it to be restored.

A meeting of Rotarians was called to review the situation and plan for the future. A club co-ordinator was appointed and team leaders assigned to each property of members endangered. A stocktake was made of volunteers and equipment.

Friday January 14: With better-organised teams, work began on several fronts. The aim was to clear the homes of goods, pull out sodden carpet and plasterboard, and remove the mud. This provided a level of “first aid” to the properties, which helped the owners come to terms with the 40

situation and allowed the process of rebuilding to begin.

Pictures of discarded beds, lounge chairs, fridges and plasterboard were shown on all news reports.

These pictures, while graphic and sensational, fail to capture the emotion of those who were carrying out people’s hard-earned dreams and memories and discarding them on the footpath for all to see.

By day’s end, several homes had been completed and another co-ordination meeting was held. Victims were able to share their stories and the other members could see how much work the club was achieving.

Saturday January 15: Access to all properties was now possible and two roving members were deployed to ensure that the interests of the members and other workers were being looked after. Hydration and safe practices were easily forgotten in the eagerness to get the job done.

The rovers ensured that information was fed back to the club’s central co-ordinator. At the end of the day, planning for Sunday began – over a few beers.

Sunday January 16: Clean-up meant most Rotary members’ residences seemed under control, so resources were directed to other homes, businesses, and the community. After tools were downed at the end of Sunday, the Rotary Club of Jindalee had been involved in the cleanup of more than a dozen houses, several businesses, the local swimming pool, and bowls club. Some of the flooded businesses were able to open on Monday – an important psychological win.

Rotary clubs across District 9630 and indeed many clubs across the Rotary International community were involved in some way during this horrendous disaster.

This was but one story.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

A despondent young boy reflects on the past couple of days.

Picture courtesy: Courier Mail.

The Rotary Flood Fightback

MONSTER Garage Sale

After Queensland’s disastrous floods, community organisations such as Rotary used every avenue possible to help the tens of thousands left devastated.

Just one of the demonstrations of support for fellow Queenslanders came from the combined Rotary Clubs and Rotaract from Redland City, Queensland, who raised $93,000 from the Monster Garage Sale over two Saturdays. (Story overleaf) Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

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Rotarians helped in the clean-up and then found a way to ease the pain of the flood victims –

The volunteers who helped at the sale also came from Lions and Probus clubs – along with other members of the public.

Remarkable? It was not just the money that was raised – more remarkable were the ways that help for the survivors’ particular problems appeared.

A father and his teenage daughter who had lost everything were able to replace furniture, whitegoods and clothing from items donated to the garage sale.

The daughter had been unable to save clothes suitable to wear to school or to go out with friends. Rotarians were able to fit her out with almost new clothes and a school satchel An elderly Rocklea man who was in hospital undergoing heart surgery during the floods, was unable to save anything when his home went under. He needed some furniture – members of the Rotary Club of Rocklea collected items for him.

The Rotary clubs prepared vouchers for whitegoods

and household appliances, clothing and other personal items for flood-hit families.

Steve and Wendy Smith lost everything when the floodwaters reached to within 30cm of the ceiling on the second level of their Graceville home.

Eight years ago they lost all their Steve and Wendy Smith possessions when their house pick up their new kitchen. was destroyed by fire.

This time, they received a new kitchen which was donated to the garage sale by a local building company “Kurrajong Steel Homes”. They were also given an almost brand-new washing machine and other items of furniture, electrical appliances, kitchenware and clothing.

Dennis Head, of the Rotary Club of Cleveland and co-ordinator of the Rotary Flood Fightback Monster Garage Sale says that more than 20 families had been helped directly with donated goods to the value of $30,000.

Huge crowds seeking bargains at the Rotary Flood Fightback Monster Garage Sale.

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To many Australians, the lowly 5c coin – the Echidna – is good only for scratching Scratchies or as a makeshift screwdriver.

But the Rotary of Toowoomba East sees it as a source of cash for hospitals and for fighting world polio.

(Story overleaf)

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In 2008 the Rotary Club of Toowoomba East embarked on a project to collect 5c coins in and around the city.

One of the originators of the idea, Rotarian Graham Christensen. says: “It’s really costing people nothing.

They give us something that has been sitting around and not being used that is now helping children in Toowoomba and worldwide.”

The club appealed for Echidnas to be dropped into collection boxes placed in stores and also special ‘spinner’ boxes in shopping centres and at the Toowoomba Base Hospital.

In four months, the club collected 100,000 5c pieces = $5000! The club believes that approximately 3000 million 5c coins have been minted since decimal currency began in 1966.

The club is quite happy to accept larger coins, notes or even foreign coins dropped in the boxes. They can all be cashed in.

The club offers the project to other Rotary clubs, with graphics, logo (Eddie the Echidna), copyright, trade mark [GIMME 5] registration and Australian Mint approvals already in place.

It has been ‘sold’ to clubs in Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania - with proceeds entirely at the discretion of those clubs. Just three of the clubs involved have raised $50,000 to support Rotary’s PolioPlus project, the Royal Flying Doctor and several smaller children’s charities.

Top: Humphrey B. Bear holds a $1,000 cheque for Toowoomba Base Hospital – from donations to the Gimme 5c appeal.

Left: The 5c Spinner! Watch the 5c coin spin around and enter the coffers of Rotary.

Above: Another of the marketing devices used to drive the Gimme 5c! appeal.

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Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

International Youth Student

EXCHANGE

“They go overseas for a year aged 18... and come back aged 25!”

Rotary Youth Exchange is one of the most popular programs to promote international understanding among young people, personal development, and develop lifelong friendships.

It began in 1927 with the Rotary Club of Nice, France.

Exchanges in Europe continued until World War II and resumed after the war in 1946. In 1939, an extensive Youth Exchange was created between California and Latin America.

Since then, the program has expanded around the world. In recent years, more than 7,000 young people have participated annually in Rotary club – and districtsponsored exchange programs.

Each year, literally hundres of Australian students – sponsored by Rotary clubs in Australia, go overseas and an equal number arrive from overseas, sponsored by Rotary clubs in their home countries.

The young man above gets close and personal with one of Africa’s ‘wild’ animals.

The young lady at right is dressed to kill in a beautifully brocaded kimino.

More pictures overleaf Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

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Top: It’s very hard to get a smile from a London guard.

Above: There’s plenty of smiles at a Thai festival.

Right: Everyone is outdoors – enjoying a sunny Swiss day.

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Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Top: “Who are these young people holding our flag?”

Above: “See it is possible to ride a bike in the snow”.

Left: A typical student blazer – totally covered in badges.

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Inbound Exchange

STUDENTS (They get to see more of the ‘real’ Australia than most Australians) Youth Exchange offers young people interesting opportunities and rich experiences to see another part of the world. Students usually spend a full academic year abroad, although some clubs and districts sponsor short-term exchanges of several weeks or months.

The cost of airfares for both outbound and inbound students is met by the students’ families, who can also provide some pocket money. Inbound students get pocket money from their host club.

Each inbound student goes to a host club, which finds sometimes up to four host families and places the student in a school. The student lives as one of the family, sharing housework and holidays. The student lives with the Four Ds – no drugs, no drink, no driving and no dating. The closeness of the ties that this generates is shown by the number of students who talk about their “mother” and “father” and “brother” and sister” in referring to their host families. The ties often last through their lives.

The host districts arrange mass tours for students – in Australia they go on a bus safari to iconic tourist spots such as Central Australia and the Great Barrier Reef Students nominate to their local clubs for exchange and are generally in Year 12 – aged 16 to 18. Those who are chosen have been through a careful selection process, and then spend time in training sessions learning how to make presentations about their native country to host Rotarians. Any language training is done privately.

The values of Youth Exchange are experienced not only by the students involved, but also by the host families, sponsoring clubs, receiving high schools, and the entire community. Youth Exchange participants usually provide their fellow students in their host schools with excellent opportunities to learn about customs, languages, traditions, and family life in another country.

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Above: Two girls enjoying their first camel ride.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Top: This safari started in Sydney and the Reptile park was the first stopover.

Left: Ylva is not too sure about the python round her neck!

Above: Much neeeded relief from the Northern territory heat is found in the crocodile-free water hole.

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Group Study Exchange – a splendid way for business people between 25 and 40 years to expand their professional skills overseas.

The overall aim of Rotary Group Study Exchange is to develop the professional and leadership skills of team members so they can address the needs of their own communities in an increasingly global workplace.

The program caters young men and women in almost every type of profession – from Actuary to Zoo Keeper.

Rotary Districts in Australia organise the exchange with a Rotary District in another country and the costs of travel, the major expense, are funded by The Rotary Foundation.

Each team is led by a Rotarian, but the members are not Rotarians. Team members can interact with professional people in the same or similar vocations as themselves, and observe their vocations as practised in the host country, and develop international professional relationships.

Since the first exchange between districts in California and Japan in 1965, the program has provided educational experiences for more than 45,000 business and professional men and women, who have served on about 9,000 teams.

The program pairs Rotary districts to send and receive study teams. Since 1965, almost US$79.5 million has been allocated by The Rotary Foundation for Group Study Exchange grants.

Group Study Exchange team members live with host Rotarians and their families in a spirit of friendship and hospitality – giving members a unique experience not available to most travellers.

In addition to learning about another country through visits to farms, schools, industrial plants, professional offices, and governmental establishments, the GSE team members serve as ambassadors of goodwill. They interpret their home nation to host Rotarians and others in the communities they visit.

Rotary Districts in Australia have organised Group Study Exchanges with Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, west50

Believe it or not, this lovely lady with the beaming smile is a Michigan State trooper. (No, she is NOT in uniform). ern Russia, U.K., and the U.S.A. (to name but a few).

Each District in turn, hosts teams from the District they exchange with.

Team members usually cover a range of occupations, but some have been single-subject. A visiting team from New Jersey, for example, consisted only of musicians.

The most adventurous exchange was between District 9680 and District 5490 in Arizona – teams and team leaders were all wheelchair-bound. One Australian was a Paralympic gold-medal swimmer, doubling as an advocate for people with disabilities (most members worked in that area). The leader of the Arizona team recently climbed Mt Kilimanjaro, pedalling, pulling and dragging himself to the top.

And you think you’ve had a hard day?

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Anti-clockwise from above: Pedro, the GSE Team Leader from Brazil shows his skills on guitar.

Pedro and his team in national dress.

This GSE team from New Jersey were all musicians and more than happy to demonstrate their musical talents at all the Rotary meetings they attended.

The District 9680 GSE Team to Brazil with Team Leader, Rotarian Gina Growden second from right.

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Donations In Kind Rotary Australia World Community Service (RAWCS), provides the channels through which hundreds of Rotary men and women go overseas each year to work on rebuilding tsunami-devastated villages, establishing orphanages for child victims, providing clean water for East Timor villages and so on.

A major arm of RAWCS is Donations In Kind, which receives all sorts of useful material, sorts it, packs it, and ships it overseas – to areas such as the Philippines, India, Africa, South America, Mongolia, East Timor, PNG, Vanuatu and the Pacific.

In May 1986, Cyclone Namu struck the Solomon Islands damaging or destroying many of the islands’ schools. The Australian High Commissioner in Honiara sought Rotary’s help in building new schools. Nothing like this had been attempted before. Volunteers had to hike kilometres to the project sites carrying food, cooking equipment and tools. The relationships established with each village led the Rotary volunteers to want to help further, particularly with educational materials. How best to get their donated goods to ‘their’ village?

In 1987 the new arm of RAWCS, Donations In Kind, came into existence.

The RAAF and RAN agreed to provide transport by patrol boat and Hercules aircraft, when space was available. The Rice Growers Co-op provided space in their containers of rice going to the Solomons. Within the first year, five and a half tonnes of books, air conditioners plus one typewriter and a chainsaw had been delivered to the Solomons.

Medical needs were next. Australian hospitals provided surplus dressings and small items of medical equipment. This went to Port Moresby thanks to Qantas and the Australian Army.

Then gifts of equipment flowed in – surplus hospital beds and equipment, sheets, blankets, school desks, school clothing.

DIK is now housed in half a warehouse at Minchin52

Donated gifts arrive every day, and every week or so, Rotarians pack the containers for shipment out to battlers all over our part of the world. bury, rented from the Salvos at peppercorn rent. Today, all major Australian cities have their DIK depots.

One of RAWCS’s furthest-flung shipments was a heart-catheter laboratory, donated by the Sydney Adventist Hospital and installed in a hospital in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

At Minchinbury, teams of Rotarians from clubs all over eastern Australia sort and stack material and prepare it for shipment. One Saturday, around 20 Rotarians from Burwood, Sydney, and other clubs, packed a 40ft container for Gingoog in Mindinao. It contained 34 beds, 13 mattresses, 440 blankets, a pallet of sheets, a pallet of blanket protectors, 100 quilts, walking frames, 40 computer hard drives and monitors, 430 boxes of medical supplies, optical equipment, and two motorised wheelchairs.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Rotary International District 9640 Governor 2011-12: Graham Jones

Rotary International District 9640 cuts across the New South Wales – Queensland border and is located between the four “Gs”: Grafton in the south-east, Glen Innes in the south-west, Goondiwindi in the north-west and the Gold Coast in the north-east.

There are currently 55 clubs in our district and more than 1,400 Rotarians.

Sipping wine while listening to world-class opera singers as the autumn sun goes down, surrounded by russet-coloured grapevines, with views of the vineyard and a national park, is as close as it gets to Heaven around Ballandean, in southern Queensland.

Every year since 1993, thousands of people flock to the Ballandean Estate Vineyard outside Stanthorpe for the annual Opera in the Vineyard.

Set amongst the grapevines, with the hills of Sundown Valley National Park as the backdrop, guests listen to classical arias and popular melodies while enjoying the fruits of the vine.

The Rotary Club of Stanthorpe launched the first Opera in the Vineyard in 1993, building a stage in the vineyard, with an audience of around 420. It now draws audiences of around 2,500, many of them making it an occasion to wear dinner suits or classic gowns.

Guests have either lunch or dinner with the performance between. The evening patrons stay on for an old-time country dinner dance in a big marquee.

Although it attracts some high-profile guests including Brisbane’s Mayors and Queensland’s Governors and Premiers, it’s the ordinary music-lovers and bon vivants who make the event so much fun.

Brisbane’s Wesley Hospital has been the major beneficiary since the event’s inception with the initial project being to help outfit the Wesley Rotary Lodge – a place where rural patients can live comfortably while

Continued overleaf

All rugged up for outdoor Opera!

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they receive cancer treatment.

Since then, many other Wesley projects have benefited including the Kim Walters Choices program and the specialist cancer care wards. Stanthorpe’s own hospital has also been a beneficiary with equipment

purchases and the furnishing of a palliative care ward.

When Stanthorpe’s community-owned home for senior citizens needed rebuilding, it was local Rotarians who kick-started the fundraising with a cheque for $200,000 raised mainly from Opera.

Singers mingle with the audience – most appreciative of their braving the chill Autumn night to hear them perform.

All good things must come to an end and the audience show their appreciation at the grand finale!

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Rotary flies in the ’Copters The Lower Clarence River Valley in northern New South Wales is a mecca for tourists seeking fishing, surfing and sunshine. But like many areas in New South Wales, urgent specialist care is a long way away.

Maclean Hospital supports the whole of the Lower Clarence, including Iluka, Yamba and Maclean. It is a general hospital, and serious and complicated cases often have to be moved hundreds of kilometres to Lismore, Grafton, Brisbane, and Newcastle Maclean Rotarians sought a significant project to celebrate the Centenary of Rotary. Club member Ken Ford, a local builder and former Vietnam engineer, was very aware of the value of helicopters in emergency evacuations. His experience in clearing remote helipad sites inspired him to suggest the construction of a low maintenance helipad right at the hospital.

The Rotary club years before had helped build a landing site in the hills near Maclean, but an ambulance had to be called each time to carry the patient from the hospital to the helipad, at a cost of up to $500.

The three Rotary clubs in the area joined in the helipad’s construction: Yamba, Maclean and IlukaWoombah. Being very familiar with the lifesaving work of the Westpac Rescue helicopter, the community overwhelmingly supported the appeal with money, material and labour. Government grant money was also obtained. Land next to the hospital building (owned by the hospital) provided an excellent site for the helipad.

The helipad provides huge savings in time and cost and is a valuable asset to the whole region.

Within 20 minutes of the conclusion of the opening ceremony, a surfing emergency transfer was necessary and the assembled crowd watched the helipad in swift use, confirming the benefits of this valuable project.

Main picture and inset: The helipad is situated adjacent to the hospital. Above: Volunteers from the Rotary Clubs of Yamba, Maclean and Iluka-Woombah on the job and the plaque that commemorates the project

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A sparkling new school... (made possible by the enthusiasm of one new Rotarian).

In 2009-10, then president Darrell Brown of the Rotary Club of Surfers Sunrise organised a fire-side chat to introduce new members to Rotary. One of the new members became greatly enthused with the club’s work with children. This is the sort of enthusiasm that Rotary loves.

He later gave $50,000; then even later, increased this to $62,000 to buy materials to build a new classroom, toilets and a playground for tsunami-ravaged Matafaa Village in Western Samoa. The club had already successfully completed a similar project in Thailand .

Christine Carberry, of the Rotary Club of Lane Cove, Sydney, who had considerable experience working in the Pacific, helped the Surfers Sunrise team in the Samoan project. Her own club and her District 9680 contributed another $15,000.

The school building was prefabricated on the Gold Coast, designed by Des La Rance (who designed the club’s $100 wheelchairs) and built with volunteer labour.

A 40-foot container was used to carry the materials – it included all that was needed to convert the container to a shower and toilet block.

Des La Rance described the building: “Everything just stands up like a pack of cards, bolts together and then we sheet the whole roof with coolroom panelling that goes around the walls, so it’s very, very cool inside.”

It’s strong enough to withstand cyclones.

Five members from Surfers Sunrise and a volunteer erected the building, toilet, shower block and the playground. Two tanks supplied water for the showers 56

and toilets. A second volunteer team came to put the finishing touches to the project which took just two weeks to complete.

After the opening formalities, the village children and their teachers sang and danced in celebration – people in need helped by another small group of people.

Des La Rance, by the way, has been honoured with an OAM: “For service to the community through the provision of technical aids for people with disabilities and the design and construction of housing for disadvantaged people in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Members of the local community were quick to volunteer to assist in the construction of the school.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Top: Village schoolchildren sing at the official openimg ceremony.

Centre left: Early stages of the construction.

Centre right: The new playground has plenty to keep the children occupied at playtime.

Left: The Minister’s wife cuts the ribbon to officially declare the school open.

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Rotary targets our young drivers Rotary already has its Rotary Youth Driver Awareness programme, but in southern Queensland, young drivers also have Rotary Youth Driver Education to hone their driving skills.

This programme, created by the Rotary Club of Hope Island, is in its fourth year. It provides hundreds of school-leavers on P plates with a subsidised defensive driving course at the Holden Driving Centre on the northern Gold Coast. The Rotary Club of Hope Island pays 50% of the $200 fee. More than 250 young drivers are expected to take part in 2011.

The course provides students with driving skills that are not usually taught. These add-on skills help them understand the consequences of excess speed, fatigue, and poor attention. One instructor is allocated three students, each of whom gets to practise steering, braking and other car control techniques in the safety of a purpose-built driver training facility.

The feedback to Rotary and appreciation from students and their parents encourages the club to continue this valuable community project by raising funds each year through special events.

While specific benefits from this project are hard to quantify, the members of the Rotary Club of Hope Island, parents, and students themselves agree that they are helping young drivers to stay safe on the roads and out of hospitals and graveyards.

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Young drivers are taught how to corner in wet conditions...

... and we mean REALLY wet conditions!

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

WHEELCHAIRS transform lives!

Just ask them...!

A holiday in Fiji by Des La Rance, a member of the Rotary Club of Surfers Sunrise, has changed the lives of more than 6,000 children in Third World countries.

Every year, thousands of children and adults are disabled and condemned to a life of poverty caused by disease or very often in war-torn countries, the brutality of land mines.

The only way they can move around is to drag themselves across the ground with their hands. Their parents – if they have any – can do nothing for them.

When Des visited Fiji in 1989, he was struck by the plight of small children in the backblocks, off the beaten tourist track – children with physical injuries, or childhood diseases such as arthritis and muscular dystrophy who could not leave their poor homes to play.

The images never left his mind. He exercised his design skills – he designs restaurant kitchens among other things – and presented to his Rotary Club a design of a wheelchair using parts of discarded bicycles.

Club members and supporters scavenged rubbish tips for dumped bicycles from which they could salvage wheels and other parts, and eventually established a

factory – the Rotary Shed – to construct these chairs at $100 each. They seek public donations with the motto: “$100 changes a whole kid’s life forever.”

The project received a big boost when it gained the support of Ray Martin on New beginnings – thanks to Des. Channel 9’s 60 Minutes.

As a consequence, the Surfers Sunrise Wheelchair Trust was formed, enabling the wheelchair project to offer tax-deductibility. The project can boast that every cent raised is dedicated to the making of wheelchairs In addition to supporting children and adults in Fiji, the wheelchair project has also benefited similar groups in the Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Vietnam, and Cambodia and even in parts of Africa.

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Scanning for

good health Give Rotary one man and one idea, and Rotary can create a programme that benefits communities throughout Australia – and one such programme is Bowelscan.

In the early 1980s, a member of the Rotary Club of Lismore, Dr. N.E (“Bill”) Brand , a surgeon, was concerned that the incidence of, and deaths from bowel cancer were increasing. This increase was all the more disturbing given that overseas research had shown that a significant number of cancers could be cured if detected early.

In 1982, on Bill Brand’s initiative, his Rotary Club developed the Bowelscan programme as a Community Service project.

Dr Brand has since died, but the programme has spread throughout Australia, involving over 300 Rotary Clubs in 16 Districts Fred Brandt, a visiting GSE Team Leader as well as Australian Rotary Health, a major non-Government from Georgia, helps in the Bowelscan kit funding agency of health research. sorting and testing in Lismore.

Bowelscan is essentially a public awareness programme seeking to increase community knowledge of bowel cancer and its symptoms through the distribution of faecal occult blood-testing kits which can facilitate early diagnosis. It is a basic screening test only, not a diagnostic test, and people with a positive result are asked to follow up with their local doctor.

Rotary distributes the testing kits to pharmacists throughout the participating districts, and the clubs publicise their availability and benefits to the community for about a month. Members of the public buy the kits for a small fee, perform the simple tests, and return the 60

completed kits to the pharmacists. The kits are collected

by Rotary and are tested by pathology laboratories at little or no cost.

The programme’s success is due to support from local shopping centres, and the hundreds of pharmacies that distribute the kits. Pathology laboratories which test the kits at little or no cost provide the critical link in the whole process.

Over the years 150,000 kits have been distributed and an estimated 1,500 people with bowel cancer and 5,000 with polyps have been detected. Truly, a great lifesaving Rotary project.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Rotary International District 9680 Governor 2010-11: George Papallo

Rotary International District 9680 comprises 66 Rotary clubs and about 2000 members to the north of Sydney Harbour. The district extends north to Toukley, east to the magnificent Northern beaches and west as far as Parramatta. The first club in the district to join the world of Rotary was North Sydney in 1928.

Bhairabi villagers gather to welcome Allan Waldon and his party - the old school lavatories are in the background.

In 1996, when Wahroonga, N.S.W. butcher Allan Waldon, his son and one of his staff, went trekking for 22 days in Nepal, they had a great trip. But Allan said after they returned to his suburban home in northern Sydney that “a couple of things had changed how I thought about things”.

DOG BONES

They had been taken to a temple, to which they climbed up a long flight of steps to feed the monkeys.

“At the foot of the steps, in the gutter, was a young woman breast-feeding her child with her hand out.

Everybody walked past her, me included, nobody gave her nothing. But we all fed the monkeys.

“When I got back, that preyed on my mind. I had thought that one person can’t change anything. The more I thought about it, I realised that if we take this attitude in life, nothing ever changes. Things stay the same.”

On the trek, Allan had become friendly with Prem, their 24-year-old guide. Allan decided to do something for Prem’s old school, in a mountain village named Shree Bhairani. The bare stone building housing the

school had 41 children aged from 5 to 10, the roof leaked like a sieve, the children sat on the floor, their schoolbooks were a ragged pile of papers.

Allan started with his existing collection box (“the Bone Bucket”) on his shop counter, asking people who got bones for their pets to put something in. He then approached local schools, and two public schools, at Wahroonga (the Bush School) and Pymble, started raising money with sausage sizzles. Then two large private schools, Knox and Loreto Normanhurst, joined in.

More generous individual supporters were added.

Working through Prem, a new room was added to the building, the roof fixed, desks and stationery bought, concreting done and the village got a new water supply.

Continued overleaf.

The school built from

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As the project grew, the Rotary Club of Wahroonga joined in, and was able to provide tax deductibility for donations and personal help by members. Allan was insistent on sending only money to Nepal – unemployment and poverty was so widespread there that spending the money there could only lift the economy. “The whole thing helps the village – the Nepalese people have more pride in their village and their school.”

By 2008, the school had grown to more than 115 and four additional classrooms, with extra teachers hired, and more furniture. The Australian Government’s Ausaid made a useful contribution - lavatories for girls, boys, the teachers and a Western-style lavatory for visitors.

Lavatories are essential if you’re going to get the girls to go to schools.

The project grew to encompass the Dharapani Secondary School, and Ausaid came good with a library – the first in the district. In its first year the library helped 150 children – “These are kids who have never had the

luxury of picking up a book and reading it.” Dharapani is to get new lavatories. Other primary schools were helped. One school (“The most depressing thing I had seen in my life,” said Allan) with no electricity and pitch dark rooms, got bay windows and was painted white.

In 2010, Allan’s daughter took 500 coloured pencils to Bhairabi. “We got the kids colouring – a simple concept they hadn’t been taught.”

The Nepalese Government has ordered that teaching above Year 3 must now be in English. And in this, Rotary has stepped in to help.

Clockwise from top: The new school library at Dhairapani.

Bhairabi schoolchildren at desks provided by a project that raised money from selling bones for pets.

The new Australian-built library at the Dharapani secondary School – their first books.

Two new buildings at Shree Bhairabi built by the project.

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“Children love my Dilly Bag” Meet Dr Janelle Young, of the Brisbane campus of the Australian Catholic University. An experienced lecturer and a former teacher in primary schools, she is also chairman of the Rotary District 9600 Literacy Taskforce.

Rotarians come from many walks of life, and very often can put their own remarkable skills into practice through Rotary.

Rotary’s world leaders have consistently identified literacy as a prime target worldwide, emphasising literacy education – in other words, teaching people to read. Rotarian Dr Young could not agree more heartily.

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Left: Rotary Club of Erina President Monika Hansen with Chertsey Primary School pupils Isaiah and Dakota Daemon, at the launch of District Governor George Papallo’s Tales From a Dilly Bag campaign. Picture: Mark Wallace.

Right: Erina Rotary President Monika Hansen (seated), DG George Papallo, John Anderson, principal, and President Elect Diana Hanks, with Chertsey Primary School pupils Isaiah and Dakota Daemon When she was a teacher, Dr Young became interested in the way young children learn to be literate and carried this interest through her later studies. She has now designed and set in production and distribution a literacy project Tales from a Dilly Bag, funded by the Rotary Foundation which has met with great success – particularly in our indigenous communities.

Individual Rotary clubs purchase for $750 a specially designed kit and give it to a class or early childhood group who can benefit from its use.

While many children develop reading skills at home, many, who may be living in disadvantaged circumstances or those whose first language is not English (for example, children whose parents are unemployed, indigenous children, Sudanese children, or other refugee or migrant children), often do not have these opportunities.

The kit provides resources that enable the young students to practise spoken language and to share picture storybooks: • A dilly bag and a large plastic box with around 55 quality children’s picture storybooks including indigenous stories suitable for very young children.

• A teacher’s folder with project information, a DVD with activity sheets to match the picture books and files for two scrapbooks that can be printed and used.

• Reading mentor badges x10.

• A craft box containing stationery & craft materials.

• A digital camera, case and memory card – (digital photos can be used as a stimulus for writing with young children).

Sharing Dr Young’s interest in literacy, especially of indigenous people, is District 9680 Governor George Papallo, himself a professional educator. He promoted 72

the project to his district clubs, and made indigenous issues the theme of his District conference in Canberra.

The first kit went to the Chertsey Primary School on the Central Coast of NSW, where more than 10 percent of the students are from an aboriginal background.

“Since our launch, with support from our coordinator President Elect Diana Hanks, we have had enough interest from clubs to order 15 more kits,” Governor George says.

“I have now met with an Elder, Margret Campbell, in Taree and the Salvation Army indigenous leader in Moree. They are both particularly interested in encouraging Aboriginal communities to support the project.

Samples of craft items that are included in the Dilly Bag kit.

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“ON THE BUSES”

Suitable transport for the elderly and disabled is not always easy to find and almost every charitable organisation would love to own their own bus – but they don’t come cheap.

The Rotary Club of North Sydney must have set some sort of record for the number of buses they have purchased for good causes.

The first bus was a gift to Hope Healthcare to run between Neringah Hospital at Wahroonga and Greenwich Hospital at St. Leonards – taking patients for medical appointments etc.

The second bus was given to The Lower North Shore Community Transport to be used for Planet X – a Youth Centre for young people aged 12 to 18, living, working and studying in the North Sydney area.

The third bus, which had hydraulic lifting etc., was given to North Sydney Council to transport people in wheel chairs and handicapped people.

The fourth ‘bus’ was a van for Phoenix House – a comprehensive specialist youth service targeting young people who are experiencing difficulty or are homeless.

Phoenix House is a one-stop-shop for these young people aged 12 to 24 years.

The fifth ‘bus’ was a gift to LifeLine. It was a van used for the collection of their used clothing bins, plus pick up of books and food etc.

The sixth bus was another for North Sydney Council.

The Council allows the Rotary Club of North Sydney to borrow these buses whenever it needs them to assist in helping the aged and disabled. Pictures: Jack Mandelberg.

Boarding the huge bus purchased for North Sydney Council.

Handing over the keys to the Phoenix House bus.

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Camps for Gramps...

Care for Grandparents caring for grandchildren If you were asked how many grandparents were raising their grandchildren on the NSW Central Coast, what would you say?

You might think there are a few - you might even know someone in this situation. But you might also be surprised at the large numbers. Rotary is helping them.

Grandparents are doing a wonderful job, stepping in at times of crisis or loss to take over the fulltime dayto-day care of their grandchildren in the absence of the parents. These situations can arise because of drug

and alcohol issues, neglect or abandonment, long-term illness, or death of the parents.

On the Central Coast, as across NSW, as in other States, there are a growing number who find themselves faced with taking on the parental responsibility of their grandchildren. Without their willingness to become involved, these children often have to be placed in foster care. By assuming responsibility for the grandchildren, the grandparents are giving the young ones a chance to have a happy and successful life.

Grand kids of all ages are catered for. These girls loved having their faces painted – much to this young man’s amazement.

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There’s room for grandchildren of all ages!

When Central Coast Family Support, a communitybased organisation, saw the problem about five years ago, it ran a program for two years to support grandparents with grandchildren. Then Government funding ended, but Central Coast Rotarians stepped in to help.

The project grew from 20 families and 60 children to 150 families and more than 500 children. There are now five support groups for grandparents across the Central Coast, offering non-judgmental support and home visits, sharing experiences, knowledge, ideas and information.

Grandparents can meet others who understand their situation. They can have a cuppa, a break and a laugh!

The Rotary Club of Kariong-Somersby was the first club to offer financial help in 2008, but when it found the needs were beyond its capabilities, it appealed to the rest of the Central Coast Rotary clubs. Eleven made it their project, too, and raised $30,000 in a year.

That support has grown every year, both financial and practical.

Rotary helps provide free camps (with canoeing, fishing classes and craft activities), picnics, seminars, one-on-one family support, professional help, plus referral and counselling from Central Coast Family Support.

Some take their fishing very seriously.

Canoeing is popular – with rigorous safety precautions.

Rotarians do the serving when lunch-time arrives.

Yes, you might have to queue up for a meal but the chefs make it all worthwhile.

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A stitch in time for Porgera The women of Porgera, a mining town in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea, are busy trying to make a living out of sewing machines. And Rotary is showing them how.

Porgera is an area of high rainfall, frequent landslides and earthquakes, all around 2,500 metres above sea level. It’s the site of a rich gold mine, run by Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold miner.

When the mine started in the 1990s, the area’s population was 10,000 tribal villagers. It’s now around 50,000. It is accessible only by charter flights, or by road from Mt Hagen, a six-hour trip requiring a police escort.

The people are basically very poor. The average family is two adults and four or five children, with some much larger. A minority live in small homes with electricity supplied by the mine, while most live in villages in traditional house/huts made from natural materials, with no electricity or water, and pit toilets.

They have no income except from selling vegetables or fruit in markets. Many children do not go to school. To reach medical assistance in Porgera, some may walk for six or seven hours.

Rotary became involved in the Porgera area through the Rotary Club of Dee Why-Warringah, in Sydney’s northern beach suburbs. Their member, Christine McCormack, has made more than 20 trips to take books, technology and sporting equipment to nearly 50 schools in the area. Christine has been working in Porgera for some five years and is so well known for her community work the locals regard her as the ‘Queen of Porgera’.

Christine invited Tony Castley, of the Rotary Club of Epping, a former District 9680 Governor, to help. There would be value in taking domestic sewing machines to 76

Clockwise from left: The welcoming party.

Christine McCormack – the ‘Queen of Porgera’.

The ladies enjoy learning to sew.

the area and arranging for the teaching of local women to sew and to make a modest income. Tony’s family company, Sew Group International, is widely involved in the sewing industry, and through the family runs Sewaid International, a program that takes sewing aid to poor areas of Third World countries.

He and his wife Sandra, and five volunteer teachers from sewing enthusiasts’ groups around Australia, travelled with Christine to Porgera, arranging to teach 15 women – and 17 turned up for the two-week course.

Twelve sewing machines were supplied by Sewaid, and the other five were owned by the Porgera Women’s Association. The teachers, helped by Tony and Sandra, taught the women to use the sewing machines to make bags then each went on to make a skirt and then the traditional Meri dress. Five advanced students went on each to make a men’s long-sleeve shirt while the rest each made a pair of children’s pants and a child’s shirt.

The visitors also gave the women students a lesson on business management and showed them how to cost their projects and manage their finances.

Tony Castley, with a lifetime in sewing machines, repaired a large number of machines that belonged to the students and friends and taught two young students, a man and a woman, from the local trade school, how to repair machines and help the ladies keep their machines in good working order. The visitors also set up interest-free micro-loans for the local women to buy new sewing machines and sewing kits for $200 (repaid at $10 a month for 20 months).

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Small Rotary clubs find it difficult to raise sufficient funds to be involved in large projects but the Rotary Club of North Sydney Sunrise has found a number of worthwhile projects that don’t break the bank. They are currently helping to support two worthwhile causes in Fiji.

Inset: Prem and her two children say hello.

Main picture: The new duck pen awaits a new supply of ducklings. Above: The old duck pen.

The first is a joint project with the Rotary Clubs of Redondo Beach, California, Suva, Fiji, and Rotary International to train dermatology nurses.

The other is a Micro Loan to a young Fijian mother to enable her to start a small duck farming business. Prem, who has two young daughters, has managed to become self-sufficient simply by tending to batches of ducklings and fattening them up for their final destination – the tourist resorts that abound in Fiji.

At little cost to the club, Prem has suddenly doubled her income.

Closer to home, the club has become involved in a literacy project with “Books In Homes” – a charity that helps under-privileged children improve their literacy skills and develop and maintain a love for reading.

Through a “whole community/school literacy” approach, Books in Homes connects children, families, community centres, and schools to the literacy process.

One such school is in Stuart Town (North East of Orange, NSW) and three of the club members recently drove out to Stuart Town to present the books to the nine children attending the school.

It was most rewarding to see just how delighted the children were to receive their books.

Centre: Rotarians Anne Henderson, Ted Sheedy and President Moira de Vos present the students with their books.

Below right: Led by their teacher, the children greet the Rotarians with a stirring rendition of the school song.

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RYLA team from Down Under attend an

ANZAC RYLA in Turkey Rylarians are recipients of a Rotary Youth Leadership Award and 15 Australian plus three New Zealand Rylarians travelled to Turkey for a special ANZAC RYLA accompanied by PDG Tony Castley and his wife Sandra.

The special International RYLA which culminated in a trip to Gallipoli for the Dawn Service on ANZAC Day, was arranged by District 2440 in Turkey.

It attracted seventy young people from seven countries including Canada, Germany, Brazil, USA, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand.

The Rylarians were treated to inspiring presentations

by Turkey’s leading academics and professionals on the traditional RYLA subjects of leadership and personal development, as well as some special sessions on the history of the Gallipoli conflict in 1915 and what it means to the Turkish people today.

There were also very interesting hands-on activities and along with the opportunity to discuss RYLA ideas with Rylarians from other Districts and countries.

Our young people have returned highly excited – with many new ideas for the future of RYLA in Australian and New Zealand.

The highlight of the trip was undoubtedly the special 48 hour tour from Mudyana (Bursa) to Istanbul, crossing the Dardanelles at Canakkale and on to the Dawn Service at ANZAC Cove. That was followed by the Australian Service at the Lone Pine Cemetery.

To be amongst some 10,000 people mainly Australians and New Zealanders at the 5.30am Dawn Service in ANZAC cove on ANZAC Day will always be a special experience that they will never forget.

As any of the Rylarians who attended will tell you, the hospitality and the organization of the RYLA and ANZAC programs was of the very highest standard and they congratulate and thank District 2440 for all the amazing hospitality and friendship they afforded.

While RYLA first began in Australia more than 50 years ago, it is encouraging to see such high stand programs now being held in more than 30 other countries and we should note that this was the 5th RYLA that District 9440 has held this year! Certainly, when this Turkey ANZAC RYLA is advertised next time, they can expect a flood of applications from Australia and New Zealand.

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The incredibly moving Dawn Service.

Tony Castley addresses the gathering after the service.

The Australian & New Zealand RYLA Teams: Districts 9455: Tamara Jones, Marissa Barbaro, Grant Godinoi, Nicholas Errol, Tarin Dempers. 9465: Kristy Ninyette, Rebecca Cumming. 9500: Catherine Macleod, Susan Clift. 9600: Michelle Riethmuler. 9640: Andrew Bradley. 9680: Erin McCluskey, Phil Wishart, Greg Langdon. 9700: Angie Fanello. 9940: Rachel Hunt.

9980: Alice Muir, Timothy Bunting.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Reaching out to the youth of

East Timor Each Australian summer, thousands of young people are selected to attend Rotary-sponsored leadership camps in a program that had an unusual start.

Known as ‘Rotary Youth Leadership Awards’, the program started in Queensland in 1959, when young people throughout the State were selected to meet Princess Alexandra on her visit to Australia.

After the visit, the Rotarians of Brisbane were so impressed by the quality of the young people that it was decided to bring young people like them together each year for a week of social, cultural and educational activities. The program was so successful that it has spread to the United States, Canada, India, France, Argentina and numerous other countries.

Now, after five years of planning, it has spread to East Timor – Timor Leste. In October 2010, 60 young East Timorese attended the first Rotary Youth Leadership Awards, largely produced by the Timorese themselves. Over the previous five years, young East Timorese had visited Australia, mostly attending the District 9680 RYLA on the northern outskirts of Sydney.

They became the facilitators for RYLA in their home country.

In 2008 after Theo and Georgia Glockemann, of District 9680 visited the country, a Rotary project was established to produce not only a Timor Leste RYLA but also to help teacher training and literacy projects for which there was an urgent need in Timor Leste.

The original plan was a RYLA for 30 young people.

When applications opened 80 applications flooded in. Of those 50 were chosen for the initial RYLA which

ran from October 18-22 at a church-owned facility in Liquisa, a town about 45 minutes’ drive from Dili.

A Rotarian team of 12 went to Timor Leste to help and also to investigate other projects which had come to the team’s attention.

The first Timor Leste RYLA was a resounding success. To see young people with so little grab the opportunity so enthusiastically was a lasting memory for those Australians present.

Speakers on many topics included wife of the Timor Leste Prime Minister, Kirsty Gusmao, and the acting Australian Ambassador, Timor Leste Opposition dignitaries and local mayors.

The week highlighted the need for Youth Leadership in a country in which a whole strata of society had perished during the turbulent years, meaning that the younger generation have no mentors.

The next RYLA plans to cater for 100 participants.

Above: Young Timorese arriving at the first Timor Leste RYLA camp.

Above right: Theo Glockemann, of the Rotary Club of Thornleigh, NSW, and Celestino, who visited Australia to learn about Rotary Youthy Leadership program.

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Helping

Members of the Rotary Club of Manly Sunrise were busy cleaning and painting the house that would become a refuge for women victims of violence.

WOMEN IN

CRISIS

Women in crisis now have a place where they can at least find a safe and secure refuge thanks to the Rotary Club of Manly Sunrise.

According to club President Ted Waters, the project began following evaluation of community needs that revealed there was no crisis accommodation in the Manly area for women victims of violence.

The Manly Community Centre had been attempting to identify an appropriate location and funding for the centre for the previous three years.

An approach by the Rotary Club of Manly Sunrise to the CEO of the Harbour Trust identified two houses in the Manly Area that could be made available at a 50 per cent discount to market rent that would be appropriate for use as a shelter, President Ted said.

A budget was prepared identifying annual costs at $250,000 and a local benefactor was identified and approached by the club.

He volunteered to underwrite the first two years costs and to subscribe $75,000 as an initial donation.

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A special purpose company, the Manly Women’s Shelter, was created with both Rotary and other local residents appointed to the board and Public Benevolent Institution tax status was approved by the Australian Taxation Office.

A two-year lease was entered into by the Company, staff were appointed and the centre opened in February, 2011.

The Rotary Club of Manly Sunrise provided security screens and fencing from club funds and club members painted one of the houses inside. Furniture was sourced from both community and Rotary donors. The shelter can accommodate 11 clients at any one time and it constantly operates at maximum capacity.

The Rotary Club of Manly Sunrise continues to support the Shelter as one of its major fundraising beneficiaries and has received credit from all involved for being the initiator and facilitator of this major community project.

Through the power of teamwork and engagement with our community, this project has made a material difference to the lives of many less fortunate than ourselves.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Rotarians Against Malaria Over 500 million people are affected by malaria every year. Each and every day, the number of deaths from malaria exceeds the total number of deaths from the tragic 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre. A child dies every 25-30 seconds.

Rotary is praised widely for its role in the front line of fighting poliomyelitis – but its parallel battle against a disease that kills up to 2.5 million people a year, mostly children under 5 and pregnant women, is not so widely known.

We have come a long way since the Greeks and Romans associated the malaria disease with swamps and marshes and the disease’s name was derived from the supposed association with bad air – “mal aria”.

The malaria parasite is carried by the Anopheles mosquito which is a tough adversary. In 1960, the World Health Organisation assessed only 10% of the world’s population to be at risk of contracting malaria.

Subsequently this rose to 40%, because mosquitoes developed resistance to pesticides and malarial parasites did likewise with respect to treatment drugs.

The loss to the economies of Third World countries, both at government and local levels, and the strains placed on their limited medical services, are enormous.

In 1990, Dr Brian Hanley, of Brookvale Rotary, Sydney, originated the anti-malaria program in Australia in 1990 then carried it forward when he was president of his club the following year. Rotarians Against Malaria (RAM)

Above: Australian Doctors International malaria officer Giwi Yombo demonstrating use of an insecticide-impregnated bed net. Inset: The deadly Anopheles mosquito. quickly became a national program and is now an international one.

Australia was declared free of malaria by the WHO in 1981. Nevertheless 700 to 800 cases are reported each year involving travellers returning to Australia from infected areas, or visitors to our country from such areas. These can include Papua New Guinea , the Solomon Islands, Timor Leste (East Timor), Vanuatu and South-East Asia generally.

An early initiative in the malaria war was the funding and construction of six microscopists’ houses in the Solomons. The buildings were made in Brisbane and erected by Rotary teams from all over Australia.

The work of the microscopists is vital in disease control. Almost the entire population of the Solomons is at risk from malaria, and constant testing – in which the microscopists play a vital part – is essential Another, supported by a large Rotary Foundation grant was also aimed at malaria control in the Solomons. This project began in 2001 and was Continued overleaf

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Arriving with boats full of nets in the Western province of PNG during the joint Rotary-ADI program. supported by countless smaller, related projects conducted and funded by Australian Rotarians. The results were dramatic, with the morbidity and mortality rates falling substantially in the two provinces serviced by the program.

In Papua New Guinea, the Rotary Club of Port Moresby embarked on a massive Adopt A Village program. When a village is “adopted� every person in the village is provided with a life-saving long-lasting insecticide-impregnated mosquito net.

These nets were developed in Vietnam. Instead of troops in the malaria war having to dip nets frequently into insecticide, they are now chemically impregnated at manufacture and keep killing mosquitoes without the net having to be re-dipped.

In 2004 the Adopt A Village program was picked up with great enthusiasm by Australian Rotary clubs. It is also a model for a number of similar initiatives in other parts of the world.

The program was extended to the Solomon Islands in April 2005 and discussions are under way to extend it into East Timor. Rotary grants are supporting a bed-netting program in both Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands for the next few years, with the Australian Government providing additional support in the Solomon Islands. The Adopt A Village program is the means of ensuring this program is sustained and guaranteed into the future.

In a new focus of the program, villages will receive tools, equipment and training to enable them to eliminate breeding sites in and around their villages.

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Bales of the blue nets, each bale holding 100 single or double nets, have been distributed to villagers with instruction sessions on their proper use.

A major initiative partnered Rotarians Against Malaria and Australian Doctors International, who targeted the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, on the border with Indonesia, for an anti-malaria drive. Since the mid 2000s, nearly 55,000 of the long-lasting impregnated bed nets have been distributed at villages and refugee settlements.

The nets cost about 17kina or $A10 each.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Interplast is fixing Some of Rotary’s best work is done when it is in partnership with outside bodies and that’s especially so in the association of Rotary and Interplast Australia.

Interplast Australia and New Zealand had its roots in the early 1980s when Melbourne surgeon Leo Rozner spoke at the Rotary Club of Cheltenham, Victoria, about his experience as a volunteer with Interplast US. The Rotarians saw there was a need for a similar service of free treatment of cleft lip and palates in countries surrounding Australia. They had the desire and could raise the funds but did not have the expertise - so they spoke to the then head of plastic surgery at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

He said the college had the desire and the expertise – but not the funds. And so Interplast was born.

Interplast Australia and New Zealand sends teams of volunteer plastic and reconstructive surgeons, anaesthetists, and nurses to developing countries in the AsiaPacific Region to provide free treatment and medical training.

The volunteers treat people living with a disability from a congenital condition such as cleft lip and cleft palate, or acquired conditions such as burns scar contractures. The targets are indigent populations who would otherwise not be able to afford, or have access tothe services.

People living with a disability are among the most disadvantaged in the world. Many suffer from treatable deformities and injuries but are unable to get treatment due to poverty, isolation and the lack of surgeons, in these cases skilled in plastic and reconstructive surgery.

Seventy per cent of the patients of Interplast are under 15. Often these children are ostracised from their society simply because they look different, or cannot perform simple tasks for themselves. They often do not go to school because they are teased by their peers.

They potentially live a life without friends or an education, and often are a continual burden on their family.

A simple operation will repair their condition, and give them the confidence to attend school, restore functionality, and grow up to contribute economically to their family and ultimately the community in which they live.

Interplast is invited by, and works with, the countries’ governments and collaborates with locals in training to improve the access to health services for the indigent population, specifically in the area of plastic and reconstructive surgery and the supporting anaesthetic and nursing services.

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This young girl had a bilateral defect. Her beauty was restored by the majic of plastic surgery.

This is what macrostomia looks like before the operation...

and this is what it looks like after the procedure.

Each team travels with approximately 250kg – 300kg of medical equipment and supplies to place as little burden as possible on the hospitals in which they work.

Since its founding in 1983 as a joint project of Rotary District 9800 and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, Interplast has involved more than 600 volunteer medical staff and 45 Rotarian observers. Interplast teams have been on over 500 programs in 25 countries,

conducted nearly 33,000 consultations and performed more than 20,000 life changing operations.

Each year, Rotarians fund about 10 Interplast programs. There are Rotarians on the Board, and on the Rotarians Committee of Interplast.

As the President of Interplast, Professor Donald Marshall, says: “The one constant throughout Interplast’s history and bright future has been Rotary.”

CONTACT: interplast@surgeons.org or go to www.interplast.com.au <http://www.interplast.com.au> 84

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

What future would these boys have without the miracles of

modern surgery?

ROMAC

Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children another wonderful humanitarian project conceived by a Rotarian.

It began as the idea of a Rotarian from Bendigo, in 1985. He was part of an outreach team of volunteer surgeons and backup staff which went to Fiji to treat children with cleft palates. He found that there were many seriously ill children who were simply too sick to be treated by their own, or visiting surgeons.

It soon became apparent that this was a problem throughout the developing countries of South-East Asia and the South Pacific. These forgotten children had lifethreatening conditions, or were so severely disfigured by accident or congenital disorders that they were often kept hidden from society.

ROMAC (which has been through a number of name changes to arrive at its present name) began when Rotary Clubs in Victoria began sponsoring some of these children to be brought to Australia. They were treated by some of Australia’s most eminent surgeons who volunteered their skills to transform these young lives.

The idea grew to the point where up to 25 children were being treated each year in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

The main contribution of ROMAC is to save clubs from “re-inventing the wheel” every time there is a patient to be brought to Australia, with all the myriad

problems of transport and Government regulations to be overcome, then to link them up with the willing and generous specialist doctors...

ROMAC is spread through all 29 Rotary Districts in Australia and New Zealand. It uses the skills of numerous volunteer surgeons in many fields to transform, and often save, the lives of up to 50 children each year in all the major cities of Australia and New Zealand.

Over 300 children from 20 countries have benefited from treatment they could not otherwise have received – all due to the generosity of Rotarians who give of their time and resources voluntarily to raise funds and tend to the welfare of patients.

ROMAC could not function without its sponsors and host families and the wonderful work of the surgeons and surgical teams in nearly all the major paediatric and specialist hospitals in the region.

The story of every patient helped through ROMAC is heart-wrenching and heart-warming.

Take Ramesh Chand, born in Labasa, Fiji, in 1982 with Osteogenesis Imperfecta.

He endured many bone fractures, all of which went untreated, due to the cost, and lack of medical facilities.

Eventually, he could only scamper around on all fours – his townsfolk called him “the monkey boy”.

His father had him begging on the streets, but his Continued overleaf

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mother and father both died by the time he was 12. He was brought to Australia by Rotarian Barrie Cooper in 1995 and examined by medical experts.

Specially designed metal rods were brought in from England, and the bones in each leg were broken in seven places to accommodate the rods.

Nearly a year later, Ramesh returned home to a great reception and grand parade in Labasa and the townspeople were all so amazed, and exclaimed “The monkey boy can now walk”. Ramesh, cheeky and lively, has returned to Australia several times to catch up with his ROMAC friends.

Seair Ahmad was born in northern Afghanistan, in 1995, in a wild and remote part of the Hindu Kush mountain range. His father was killed in the war with the Russians when Seair was a year old.

He developed curvature of the spine, and as he grew, his spinal curvature became worse. There was no money for a doctor, so, as with many children who had deformities or were maimed as a result of the war, Seair lived with it.

His mother remarried, had four more children, and with a large family and hard work in the fields, she decided to send Seair to an orphanage in Kabul, run

by Mahboba’s Promise, where he has lived since 2002.

He is an outstanding student, and visits his family in the holidays.

In 2005 Mahboba Rawi brought photos of Seair back to Sydney, and, through Bill Crews, of the Exodus Foundation, contacted ROMAC. It became vital to operate before his adolescent growth spurt, which would have paralysed him. Despite visa difficulties, he eventually arrived in Sydney, and tests discovered that TB in the spine was the likely cause of the deformity, and not a congenital defect.

This was good news – as the operation to stabilise the bones would mean no further deterioration. Not only would it save his life, but would allow him a normal lifespan. A very difficult 11-hour operation ensued, by Doctor Angus Gray, and Seair came out of it still smiling.

Wang Zhi Mei was born in rural China in 1994, and discarded as a one-year-old. She was taken in by a farm worker and his family, but at 19 months, Mei fell into a vat of boiling water, suffering severe burning which created severe scarring.

There was no proper medical treatment available.

She grew up walking like a duck, due to the constrictions of the scar tissue on her arms and legs.

Mei was noticed by a missionary worker, who knew a Rotarian, who knew about ROMAC, and so on... and so on. Mei arrived at the Westmead Children’s Hospital in early December 2006 and spent nearly five months there, undergoing a series of operations, all the time with her adoptive father sleeping beside her on a foldout bed.

By May 2007, she was standing tall, and walked on to a homeward-bound plane arm in arm with her dedicated Dad. She returned to Australia in March 2008 for follow up surgery.

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Ramesh and Seair back in Sydney to catch up with their ROMAC friends.

Vietnamese girl Ngoc Hoa with Rotarian Rob Wilkinson after her operation to correct defects in her eyes & nose.

Wang Zhi Mei and her adoptive father go sightseeing with Ramesh after Mei’s follow-up surgery.

Rotary Down Under – Humanity In Motion

Rotary International District 9690 Governor 2010-11: Marilyn Mercer

Rotary International District 9690 is the smallest Rotary District in Australia.

It is a compact area of 6,500 square kilometres, generally bounded by Burwood in the east, north west to Windsor, west to Lithgow, south to Wallacia and through Liverpool to Revesby.

The District has 34 Rotary Clubs, two Interact Clubs and three Rotaract Clubs.

Rotary helps a nation remember...

In 1994, the Federal Government launched a commemorative program “Australia Remembers” to mark in 1995 the 50 years from the end of World War II. One of the many projects that it spawned was an 800-metre memorial walkway connecting Concord Hospital to the local railway station at Rhodes, a Sydney suburb.

It became the Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway and Rotary was there when it began.

Rotary was represented on the steering committee by two members of the Rotary Club of Concord, Peter Davidson (who has since died) and Frank MacDonald.

Other organisations deeply involved were the hospital, the RSL and other veterans’ organisations, and the local Council . Rotary is still involved in the management of the memorial.

Why was Concord Hospital chosen? Because it was a major Army hospital in World War II – the 113rd AGH, particularly remembered by servicemen and women as their last port of call before discharge in peacetime.

Both Peter Davidson and Frank MacDonald played an important role in development of the walkway’s school excursion program and were guides for a number of years before veterans were recruited as volunteers.

Completed in year 2000, the Walkway features a magnificent granite memorial centrepiece, 22 stations, a circular rose garden and coastwatcher’s lookout.

Continued overleaf

Each Anzac Day, veteran organisations, with the help of the army, hold services at the memorial.

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Other features include a BBQ shed, donated by the Rotary Club of Concord.

The BBQ shed has served as a focal point for many visitors to the memorial and (before the opening of the Education Centre) was where students gathered for an information talk before setting out on their walk.

Stations along the Walkway represent villages along the Kokoda Track where important battles and events occurred in the 1942 campaign. Each station has an account of the battles and photographs from wartime.

The Walkway now hosts two or three tour buses a day, many of them schoolchildren.

Each year it is visited by 3000 school visitors.

World War II veteran, Ray Gentles entertains school children on their visit to the memorial.

Connecting with seniors...

Every year, two weeks before Christmas, the Rotary Club of Lower Blue Mountains hosts some 140 housebound seniors from throughout the lower Blue Mountains, NSW, to a ‘Young at Heart’ Christmas lunch in the Emu Plains Sports and Recreation Club. A fixture on the club activity list for almost two decades, the project is the ‘baby’ of long-serving member John Keogh and always attract maximum support from the 60-strong membership.

Members pick up and return the very grateful seniors to their homes. The Emu Plains licensed club assists with part sponsorship of the three-course Christmas lunch – turkey, chicken, plum ‘pud’ and all the usual festive treats. Rotarians and partners add to the

Santa is busily ‘working’ the crowd.

Three of Santa’s ‘Little Helpers’: Rotarians Robyn Eishauer, Christine Shearston and Sue Parnell.

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community connection by serving all meals to the big gathering themselves.

The Blue Mountains Brass Band makes a guest appearance and Rotarians lead the traditional Christmas Carols.

Children from nearby primary schools support this day for seniors by creating personalised, addressed Christmas cards for every guest, and Lower Blue Mountains Rotary adds a bag of Christmas lollies. The highlight of the day is a visit from a resplendent Santa Claus – in the guise of Past District Governor John Wakefield!

It’s a feelgood day for everyone . The happy seniors often become emotional as they leave, saying, “Thank you Rotary. If it wasn’t for you, we would probably not have any special treat at Christmas”.

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Doug Walters (second from right) with Rotarians from the Rotary Club of Windsor at McQuade Oval.

The ‘Pocket Pickets’

(You can be part of history for $50!)

In the middle of Windsor, in the historic Nepean and Hawkesbury River valley, lies McQuade Oval. Its supporters claim that cricket was played at the village green on the site in the 1820s, with the first recorded game in Australia played there in 1841.

Reeks with history, doesn’t it? The Rotary Club of Windsor has drawn on that history to raise $170,000 to give the ground a traditional white picket fence. It has done this by selling the fence, picket by picket, post by post, letting the public be part of its history.

Originally part of Windsor’s market square, the oval became known as “the green” and later “The Village Green”, before being embraced by McQuade Park.

Finally, the oval became “McQuade Oval”.

Proud Rotarians with their new picket fence.

Pickets signed by sporting heroes.

Records show that as early as the 1820s, cricket was played on “the green”, with the first documented match in 1841, between a military team and a local side. In 1890, rugby was played there for the first time, when The King’s School from Parramatta played a local team.

The new fence has 180 posts and 4000 pickets.

Sponsorship of a post cost $500, sponsorship of a picket $50.

Each sponsor received a print of a painting of McQuade Oval, framed with timber from the original fence, and a plaque with the sponsor’s name on it is placed on the new post. And wait, that’s not all – picket sponsors received a miniature replica picket, autographed by a leading sportsperson and numbered to coincide with the actual fence picket.

Surplus from the fund-raising goes to local charities.

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Rotary clubs draw their support from the community they serve, and the Rotary Club of Padstow, Sydney, is no exception – except that it can draw its support from 20,000 people who throng the suburb’s streets in the club’s annual one-day Padstow on Parade.

“Padstow on Parade” (known as POP) is in its sixth successful year, a community family day.

With the support of Padstow businesses, Padstow on Parade requires closure of the main street for one Sunday in October - a day on which the entire community comes together safely, to have fun and celebrate the talent and expertise of the local people.

Padstow Rotary provides • Covered stage and seating for 200 people, for entertainment showcasing local schoolchildren. The stage entertainment runs non-stop for seven hours.

• Up to 90 stalls, providing food from all over the world, arts, crafts, jewellery and collectables, clothes and books, along with displays from sponsors and local businesses and industries.

• Rides and amusements for the whole family.

• Free activities including pony rides, kids’ zoo, face painting and “give aways” for young children.

Although designed as a fun-filled day of activities for all ages, the Rotary club also raises money for Bankstown Hospital, for some $55,000 worth of equipment over the past five years.

The idea for POP came from the Padstow Chamber of Commerce, which was unable to go ahead because of insurance costs. The Rotary club took over the 90

event. Every member of the club – and their families - contributes in some way. Padstow on Parade is a mammoth job but, at the end of the day, provides wonderful result for the community.

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The Gnome Convention...

Rotarians are the true believers!

Gnomes first appeared in European folklore as benevolent creatures who rewarded the good behaviour of farmers, merchants, and housewives with assistance in fields, shops, and gardens at night.

Today, many people believe that gnomes don’t exist.

– but not members of the Rotary Club of Lower Blue Mountains. Their faith has made many people realise what Rotary is about – doing good and having fun, which real gnomes used to do.

Once a year, on Australia Day, the true believers hold a Gnome Convention at Glenbrook that in daylight hours draws up to 2,000 garden gnomes. Nobody knows how many real gnomes steal in at night to socialise with their inanimate counterparts.

Seven years ago, the Rotary Club of Lower Blue Mountains (serving the communities of Emu Plains, Lapstone, Glenbrook, Blaxland, Winmalee, Mt Riverview, Warrimoo and Springwood) was struggling to build membership.

An Australia Day celebration on Glenbrook Park had long been its principal community event, but a special ingredient was needed to grab the public – and the media.

Past President David Cook had nurtured the idea of a Garden Gnome Convention for years and told the club’s Australia Day Committee about it midway through 2004. There was only a lukewarm reception - but from a humble start with about 100 garden gnomes in 2005, the annual Garden Gnome Convention now provides a fairytale experience for children. They delight at almost 2,000 garden gnomes on show in a garden wonderland.

The Australia Day program includes a traditional

flag-raising ceremony, food stalls, entertainment – from music and dancing to bush poetry – and occasionally the Blue Mountains City Council Citizenship Ceremony.

The club’s 50-plus Rotarians now have gardens – and homes – heavily populated (between conventions) by garden gnomes of all sizes and descriptions. Local businesses Go Enviro Landscapes at Blaxland and Trains, Planes and Automobiles join in the fun.

Continued overleaf

“Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil”.

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Midway through 2009, Lower Blue Mountains Rotary achieved international fame when members rescued some 1500 garden gnomes from the property of a deceased estate at Cootamundra, hundreds of kilometres away.

The gnomes would probably have been trashed, but for the caring Rotarians and the convention who carried them back to Glenbrook, cleaned them up, and ‘adopted’ them out to a legion of new carers. The only condition was that carers had to agree to bring the gnomes back to the convention each year. The news of the brave Rotarians spread around the world via radio and television.

The Australian Gnome Convention has certainly changed the public’s perception of Rotary and Rotarians.

Gnomes clockwise from top left: Sleepy Gnome; Book Gnomes; Bathing Gnome; Tree Gnomes.

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Rotary International District 9700 Governor 2010-11: Neal Fogarty

Rotary International District 9700 has 42 Rotary Clubs and extends inland from the mountains to the south west plains covering 20% of New South Wales. It has a great diversity of agriculture (grain, meat, wool, fruit, wine, timber), mining (gold, copper, nickel) and manufacturing as well as educational, health, tourism and service industries.

TEACHING TEACHERS IN

It’s a problem that seems a long way away from Australia – and also a long way up. The Nepalese Government has ordered that teaching in its schools from Year 3 must be in English. It’s a far away problem that Australian Rotarians are helping to solve.

Rotary District 9700 members and other Rotarians who are teachers have been part of an exciting Australian volunteer program that is providing new ways for schooling in the remote Himalayan foothills in Arupokhari, Gorkha District of Nepal.

In the simple schools, teaching has been by rotelearning, by teachers with little training and at schools sometimes lacking the most basic materials and equipment. The project started by a Sydney suburban butcher, Allan Waldon, is providing some schools with better buildings, better facilities such as water supplies, lavatories, desks, and a library – and now it’s time for the teachers to be helped.

The main objective of the first teacher training visit was to introduce teaching methods that provide alternatives to the rote current learning from blackboards. A team of experienced Australian educators went to the Himalayas in January 2011to run a six-day course for 53 Nepali teachers from 22 schools.

The Nepali teachers, selected mainly because of their proficiency in English, walked up to three hours each way each day to attend the training. The educators flew to Katmandu, travelled five or more hours on a terrible road west of Katmandu, then had to walk a path that took them over two suspension footbridges to

NEPAL Bhairani, 1200 metres higher.

They were greeted by banners (in English) saying: ‘We feel blessed to have people of such stature serving to benefit our society’ and ‘A warm welcome to our distinguished Australian personalities’.

The group was hosted in the village of Bhairani, living in camping tents, and walking to Dharapani, where they conducted their course, “30 minutes” away. Distances are not measured in the mountains by metres, but by the time it takes to walk anywhere.

The team was Dr Anne Prescott (Rotary Club of Wahroonga, Sydney), Dr Graham Tyson (Rotary Club of Bathurst Daybreak) and Judy Tyson, Mary Brell (Rotary Club of Orange Daybreak), and Denise Flockton (Rotary Club of Wagga Wagga Sunrise). Richard Jackson, of the Rotary Club of Wahroonga, who has worked with Allan Waldon almost from the start of his project, conducted them.

In the training, Nepalese translators worked closely with each of the Australian trainers to ensure that the teachers understood fully the new techniques and approaches being advocated. The training team was careful to ensure all the teaching techniques were culturally acceptable and suited the local conditions.

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Continued overleaf.

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Nepali Department of Education teacher-trainers also attended the course and were enthusiastic participants.

The next step in the project is a visit by more Australian teachers to teach and improve the standard of English among the Nepali teachers. Many have difficulty in teaching students in English.

If the Government schools fail to achieve a satisfactory standard in the English language, students from families with some cash income will move away to attend private schools. This could lead to social and cultural disruption in these remote areas.

The project is supported by the Government of Nepal, the Sambhav Nepal Foundation (a Government registered non-profit organisation), and the Rotary Clubs of Mt Everest (Nepal) and Wahroonga, District 9680, as well as District 9700 Rotarians.

Above: Dr Brell speaks to the teachers.

Left: The last wire-rope suspension footbridge.

Opposite: The Australian team lived in the smaller tents, with some larger tents for eating. (The red building was a shower).

Shrouded in Himalayan mists, the teachers worked and ate in these tents for a week.

Almost buried beneath garlands of mountain flowers, the Australian teachers stand before the Dharapani school.

Prem, the guide is second from right.

The welcome at the stone-built Dharapani secondary school - all two hours of it!

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TURNING

DARKNESS...

INTO

LIGHT! The name of the project tells it all – “Darkness to Light”.

Out of the human darkness caused by cataracts and other ocular problems, the dream of one man and the work of Rotary have brought light to thousands of Indians.

There are perhaps 80 million sufferers from cataracts in the world, with some nine million in India. It used to be curable only by very difficult time-consuming operations but it can now be cured by fairly simple operations involving high-frequency ultrasound.

Alok Kumar Sharma was born in 1964 in Haryana State, northern India, the son of a headmaster, and completed his ophthalmology surgery studies in India before coming to Australia in 1994. He got his fellowship from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists and worked in Sydney before settling in Wagga Wagga in 2002,. He joined the Rotary Club of Wagga Wagga in District 9700 soon after.

On a return trip to India in 2000 to visit relatives, he had met a Sister in the Hindu temple where he worshipped. She sowed the seed of the idea of 96

conducting eye surgery camps near his home town. He took his dream to his new Rotary club and together they set about raising funds for his first eye camp.

They held a dinner for 170 at the Wagga Wagga Country Club to which St Leonards, Sydney, restaurateurs Ajoy Joshi and his wife Meera provided traditional Indian food without cost. The dinner, with the sale of the Joshi cook books, plus donations of medical supplies and equipment, provided more than $71,500 of the eye camp’s cost.

The first camp was held in November 2005 at the Civil Hospital, Yamuna Nagar, in Haryana State, about four hours’ drive north of Delhi.. Dr Sharma contacted the local Rotary club – Yamuna Nagar-Riviera – which enthusiastically became a partner in the project.

The original plan was to help 1,100 patients. Dr

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Sharma’s father, Mr Ishwar Dayal Sharma, toured many of the 150 villages in the district on a motorcycle, distributing pamphlets, while a team used an auto rickshaw fitted with a loudspeaker toured the streets, telling the very poor people that a free eye camp was being planned. The result? More than 2,000 turned up.

Dr Sharma’s team, with local doctors and volunteers from Wagga Wagga, did 245 free cataract operations, screened 400 people for spectacles and gave 230 of them a new pair each, and issued some 700 medications. The Rotary Club of Wagga Wagga paid for the cost of each operation, medicine, glasses and food for each patient and carer.

The camps have been repeated with growing numbers in 2007, 2010 and 2011, with the continued generosity of Ajoy Joshi, the co-operation of the Rotary Club of Yamuna Nagar Riviera and of The Rotary Foundation. More than $130,00 has been raised to date.

The impressive statistics: • 670 cataract operations performed.

• 4,500 patients treated and given medication.

• 1,200 patients given a new pair of glasses.

• 500 children screened for dental and eye problems.

As well, the local Rotarians have run a project to publicise organ transplants, and 25 sets of eyes have been donated.

The community has rewarded Dr Sharma and his club with awards ranging from his district’s “Outstanding Rotarian of the Year” in 2006 for him, and “Best International Project” for the club. Dr Sharma says that all he ever wanted to do was “to give back to the community.”

Opposite page: The queue of patients waiting for the eye camp to open.

A patient and her carer.

This Page: The recovery room – with scores of very poor patients.

Time for the injection and Dr Sharma operating.

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Give Peace

a Chance Rotary lights the flame for world peace

Rotary Clubs and communities worldwide have committed themselves to promoting world understanding and peace.

This is founded on the belief that “Peace is a treasure that eludes many” but should be “embraced by the whole of humankind”.

The Rotary Club of Wagga Wagga Kooringal and the combined Rotary Clubs in the city of Wagga Wagga, NSW initiated the Peace Communities program in District 9700 in 1992.

The concept of peace promoted through the District 9700 Communities Program encompasses all those measures that improve human relations with positive and harmonious outcomes.

Peace is a healing process and a noble goal for our world to achieve – “In peace, harmony and friendship, let us develop a more joyful future for us all”.

Peace starts in the home with the family and in the local community. A peaceful community leads to a peaceful world.

At this stage Peace Communities have been established across Australia and are throughout the world. They are found in: Argentina, Canada, France, India, Israel, Japan, Mauritius, Northern Marianas, Namibia, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa, United States of America, Yugoslavia and Zambia.

In these countries Rotarians are committed to 98

The belief of all Rotary Peace Communities worldwide:  Respect for the life and dignity of every person, without discrimination or prejudice;  Rejection of violence, in all of its forms and towards all people;  Resolution of conflict among people within local and global communities;  Reconciliation of differences and the pursuit of harmony; and  Freedom of expression and cultural diversity.

advancing the belief of peace in the world and have established Peace symbols where the community can meet to celebrate World Peace Day on 23rd February.

On these ‘celebration days’, Rotary recognises local citizens, schools and organisations for their contribution to promoting Peace within their community.

Top: A Rotary President addresses the gathering on the significance of becoming a Peace Community.

Above: The magnificent Peace Monument.

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Students let their minds go free on engineering problems Why is one group of country high school students trying to build a balloon-assisted flying machine to escape from a lost world?

Why is another group trying to build a stateof-the-art model home that will stand up to drought, fierce storms, flooding, and temperature extremes, and be as ecologically friendly as possible? Why are still others trying to fly a Styrofoam aeroplane?

They are taking part in a Science and Engineering Challenge.

High school students in city schools have a wide choice of projects in these events that are aimed at encouraging and enriching their studies of subjects such as science, engineering, and mathematics – but do country students have the same opportunities?

Not as often as they should. But in Rotary District 9700, centred on “bush” areas of New South Wales, the Science and Engineering Challenge is gaining popularity as a day of fun, teamwork and discovery in which the students are challenged by such problems as aeroplane building and model home designs..

The Challenge began in 2001 as an initiative of the University of Newcastle, NSW to inspire young people to study senior mathematics, physics and chemistry and to address the significant science and engineering skills shortage in Australia by showing the varied and

practical elements of a career in the science and engineering.

The Challenge has grown to involve over 100 Rotary clubs and 30 universities reaching 800 schools and 22,000 students nationwide.

The program’s success owes much of its achievement to the partnership with Rotary, which has enabled its significant expansion across Australia.

District 9700 has been involved since 2005 and the last Challenge, at Forbes, Orange, Wagga Wagga and Young, involved 800 students from 32 schools in a Continued overleaf

The team from Sacred Heart College.

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“But will it fly?” The Henry Lawson High School, Grenfell Team don’t look too confident about their flying machine. series of exciting and competitive activities, competing with other school groups in engaging and demanding projects.

Ultimately the Challenge gives students a practical appreciation of what is involved in pursuing a career in science and engineering.

The Competition involves three stages: Local Competition, Zone Competition and a National Competition where the top schools from each zone in Australia travel to compete in the “Grand Challenge”.

Typically eight schools each day compete in a Challenge, with each school providing a team of approximately 32 students.

These teams are divided into eight groups that compete in one or two fun and hands-on activities involving principles of science, engineering and technology.

The activities have titles such as: • Escape from the Lost World - students make a frame onto which helium-filled balloons are attached.

Movement is supplied by a number of pre-wired motors and propellers which need to be strategically arranged, and the craft has to be flown around a given course set up in the room.

• Gold Fever - a bridge building activity uses a standard rig to deliver a dynamic load. The lightest bridge to hold the rig wins.

• Eco-Habitech - students build a state-of-the-art model home with the materials provided that will stand up to drought, fierce storms, flooding, and temperature extremes, and be as ecologically friendly as possible.

There are rigorous tests on the scale models and the value of materials and their carbon cost are calculated.

• World Sailing Spectacular - students make model sailing boats which are tested in a 2 metre tank whilst 100

Teamwork gets the job done (well, we hope it does). powered by a wind generator. They need to consider the size of the sails, the positioning of the keel, the need for a rudder, and the amount and position of ballast.

• Flight!...of the Navigator - students construct a Styrofoam plane that is flown from a launcher. Through variations in the design of the fuselage, wings, tail, rudders, flaps, elevators and ailerons, students strive to build the plane that scores best on flight distance, flight accuracy and landing accuracy.

The concept is to engage students in the activity with a minimum of introduction and theory. Students explore scientific principles for themselves rather than being guided to a predetermined answer.

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Rotary International District 9710 Governor 2010-11: Bill Seelis

Rotary International District 9710 is a mixture of NSW coastal and mountain based Clubs stretching from Gerringong in the north to Eden in the south. It also encompasses all of the ACT, the Southern Highlands and the high country Clubs of Batlow, Tumbarumba and Tumut.

The District enjoys a solid Membership base of around 1500 Members through 48 Clubs.

Rotary runs the Capital Region

Farmers Market

Farmersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; markets shoppers love the thought that they are supporting farmers and connecting with locally grown produce. The bargains they get are, of course, a major attraction, and are just some of the reasons the Capital Region Farmers Market is so popular.

(Story overleaf)

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Shoppers come from miles away to meet with other regulars and buy the finest, freshest local produce.

Founded by the Rotary Club of Hall in 2004, and now run weekly by the club, it offers a diverse range of fresh food and agricultural produce. It’s a genuine farmers’ market with as many as 120 stalls, held every Saturday morning from 8am to 11am at Exhibition Park in Canberra, with thousands of Canberrans wandering through.

It provides local and regional farmers with an outlet to sell their produce – and funds raised are fed back into regional communities and other projects supported by the Rotary Club of Hall.

One project resulted in a movie trailer being built and sent to the NSW regional town of West Wyalong, which was one of the rural communities doing it tough in a drought.

Hall came up with the idea of what was to become the “Rotary Flicks” trailer – a modern version of the old travelling picture shows, showing movies in the open air.

Members of the Club visited the Rotary Club of West Wyalong in June 2010 to progress the plans. The club set up the multimedia trailer, with some members having building and welding skills constructing it. ”Rotary Flicks”, including screen, chairs, DVD and barbecue equipment, was then donated to the West Wyalong community so they could hold regular movie nights.

Another rural project by the Hall club was in Grenfell – finding money to buy health equipment including a mobile palliative bed, portable baby scales and a marquee used during outside education sessions.

The funds generated by the Capital Region Farmers Market have helped local Canberra organisations such as a youth centre, a community pipe band, a Helicopter Service, and quilts for kids in hospital.

“Rotary Flicks helps to bring the community together, enabling people to create connections and build support networks”.

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DIALYSIS IN THE

DESERT

Hilary Tjapaltjarri is a senior Pintupi man and an important member of his community in the remote Western Desert at Kintore, 500km west of Alice Springs. Like many indigenous people he suffers from kidney disease; until early 2011 he spent much of his recent life in Alice Springs for life-saving dialysis.

There he slept under a tree in the yard of a dilapidated and chaotic town camp house far from his family support. He could have spent the last days of his life there. Now, as a result of a partnership between an indigenous community organisation and Rotary, he and an increasing number of others from his community will be able to return permanently to Kintore. The Western Desert Nganampa Walytja Palyantjaku Tjutaku Aboriginal Corporation was established in 2001, to try to solve the acute social dislocation arising from kidney disease.

By 2004 it had established at Kintore a small-capacity dialysis facility to enable those living in Alice Springs to return home for short stays.

In 2007 the Rotary Club of Woden, took on the challenge of refurbishing, in association with the Aboriginal corporation, an unused building to enable the expansion of dialysis capacity at Kintore.

The Rotary Foundation granted $20,000 to help get things underway; Australian Government grants and donations from individuals were also obtained. Support came from many Rotary Clubs; some organised work parties, others provided funds.

An architectural firm provided free plans and specifications, and electrical and plumbing contractors helped at no cost. Rotarians and many friends of Rotary made up the 13 Rotary working parties that went to Kintore between November 2007 and October 2010.

Expanded dialysis services are now being provided in the refurbished building. Two dialysis chairs are in operation and another two will be added.

It has been an important step in achieving the corporationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision for a better life for indigenous Australians â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and Rotary has been there to help.

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Rotary helps to create

a Garden of Delights

Rotary clubs sometimes create and carry out projects by themselves.

But more often Rotary, with many sources for fund-raising, can help community projects come to fruition by an injection of cash.

Cranleigh Special School in Canberra is for children aged three to 12 who have moderate to severe intellectual disabilities, including some with physical and complex issues. Class groups are small and students are placed in them according to their age and educational needs. Each class group has a teacher and at least one assistant.

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The school, part of the Kippax community, is strongly supported by parents and the local community. Recently it undertook an ambitious program to convert a large derelict area into a covered play facility â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the Garden of Delights.

The excavation and building structure were funded in part by government, and by school fund-raising, but there was not enough money

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to finish off the area aesthetically or to provide play equipment and decoration.

This is where the Rotary Club of Belconnen stepped in with $35,000 to complete the project.

Canberra artist Bev Hogg was engaged to provide art work in the Garden of Delights. Ceramic pieces that make up the works that decorate the walls were made by the students and staff with Bevâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guidance.

Features of the Garden of Delights include soft-fall floors, in-ground trampolines, musical footbridges, play panels of various kinds, visual decorations that can also be seen and appreciated by students who cannot stand, wheelchair-accessible activities and various other auditory and sensory experiences.

The Garden of Delights provides undercover play space with equipment and facilities that allow all children to play together regardless of their levels of ability and this has proved to be a wonderful asset for the school.

Opposite page: Canberra artist Bev Hogg at work on her magnificent ceramic wall.

This page: The children are surrounded by brightly coloured play areas that provide a safe, fun-filled environment.

Highly trained, caring staff provide supervision both when the children are at play and when they do their exercises.

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A paradise in dire need of help...

When a tiny Pacific country, listing villages according to their per capita income, nominates one village as poor, it suggests that the village school will need help in large lumps.

Tonga is a tropical paradise that so far has escaped Western tourist development. Lapaha is a village 20km south-east of the capital, Nuku’alofa. It used to be the capital, but when the rulers moved to the new capital centuries ago, Lapaha became a backwater, and now has no more than 5000 residents.

The school has about 300 students and 10 teachers.

It has a water supply but it is not drinkable. It is lacking in toilet facilities and the buildings need a lot of help.

In 2009, the Rotary Club of Jerrabomberra, near Canberra, had never had a project in association with a partner Rotary club in another country. Potential projects listed with Rotary Australia World Community Service, a Rotary “umbrella” agency, led to one in which the Rotary Club of Nuku’alofa sought joint help for Lapaha primary school.

Jerrabomberra felt it could make a real difference in the school lives of students and teachers alike.

The project has three components: The first will include installation of rainwater tanks for clean drinking water.

The second is the provision of a large toilet block for the children. Current toilets are insufficient and often inoperable.

The third includes refurbishment of 10 classrooms – simple ceiling panels, some wall lining, floor tiling, replacement of window louvres, painting and repair (or replacement) of school furniture.

The final stage involves repairs to security fencing.

The project may take three to five years to complete.

The club is contributing $US7500, its District and the Nuku’alofa club will add to that, then Rotary International is being asked, under a scheme that distributes Rotary funding worldwide, to match them. The estimated cost of the first two components is $US25,000, and the third an estimated $US1500-$2000 per classroom. Australian teams will go to Lapaha, and do the work employing local labour.

Rotarian Gerry McNamara, of Jerrabomberra, journeyed to Tonga recently to see the requirements for the project at first-hand and sort out the supply of 106

Top: The principal outside a classsroom.

Centre: Condemned toilet block. Above: Existing toilets.

materials. Rotary tries in many of its overseas projects to source materials locally, helping local businesses and local employment. Rotarian Gerry attended a meeting of the Rotary Club of Nuku’alofa., which enthusiastically welcomed the partnership with Jerrabomberra. It is already involved with other overseas clubs in local projects.

His tour of the school confirmed the sad state of conditions for teachers and children alike and reinforced the worthiness of the undertaking.

The Lapaha School has previously received library books through Rotary’s Donations-In-Kind in Australia and also some school supplies from the Rotary Club of Maclean in NSW.

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Garden Gnomes do their bit to

BEAT POLIO (when they’re not busy having a sleep)

Garden gnomes, if you can catch one for a chat, will tell you that they don’t just stand in the corner of gardens looking pretty. When they are not on garden duty, they quietly go around doing a lot of good in the world – not unlike Rotarians.

Take the garden gnomes of East Canberra. Every year at Floriade, the great Canberra celebration of Spring, they raise money for Rotary’s greatest challenge – eradicating polio from the world.

Since the 1980s, Rotary and its 1.2million members have been helping the World Health Organisation in a worldwide drive to inoculate children against the disease. The campaign has been so successful that the disease exists in a small but dangerous way in only four or five countries, and Rotary is making a final push to, as its PolioPlus campaign says, End Polio.

Since 2007, the Rotary Club of Canberra East has sold gnomes for painting at Floriade to raise funds for community and international projects, notably polio.

In 2010 about a thousand gnomes took

up temporary residence on Gnome Knoll in Commonwealth Park , Canberra, along with the millions of flowers that bloom for Floriade.

Hundreds of children and their parents took to the gnomes with paints and let their imaginations run wild.

Surprisingly, the most enthusiastic gnome painters have been young adults, not children. By the end of the first two weeks of Floriade, 600 of the gnomes had been adopted; either painted and placed in the display, or taken to new homes all over Australia. The gnome demand was so great that Canberra East had sold out of gnomes by the third week.

Never fear, gnomes are reproducing as only gnomes can, and the Rotary Club of Canberra East will be selling gnomes again in the next Floriade in Spring.

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Each year the Rotary Club of Belconnen packs Christmas hampers for underprivileged and struggling families in the Belconnen area to be distributed by charities such as Vinnies, Uniting Care, St John’s Care, Carers ACT and Canberra Fathers and Children’s Services.

In the last few years a number of primary schools in the area have also asked for hampers for some families in their schools.

The last two years have seen the numbers of hampers packed increase 200 to 264, but demand far outstrips the number the club can supply.

Around early October, the club asks charities for their needs. St France Xavier College, Florey, lends premises to the club and packing starts in early December.

The boxes contain mainly Christmas items, such as cakes and puddings, shortbread and mince pies, along with some basic foods such as breakfast cereal, fruit juice, and tinned fruit. The club calculates to spend $65 on each hamper, and thanks Woolworth’s Kippax and Tom’s Superfruits for their help in bulk purchasing items at a good price.

This is a really “feel-good” club project, making life a little brighter for those in need.

Peter Oldham in charge of the nuts.

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Top: Past District Governor Ian Sayers, Marta Avilla-Klapp and Greg Cameron at work with their knives.

Above: Colin Bradford and Katy Lees help with the puddings.

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Rotary International District 9790 Governor 2010-11: Alan Anderson

Rotary International District 9790 consists of 62 Rotary clubs and has approximately 1850 members. Essentially a wedge in the centre of Victoria and New South Wales, it encompasses the northern part of the city of Melbourne; areas of the Goulburn and Murray Valleys; the gold fields of the 1850’s and the magnificent scenery of the Great Dividing Range.

Rebels against

DRUGS

A pilot program was run at the Broadmeadows Secondary College (now Hume) Year 9 co-ed class, teaching not only the dangers of illicit drug use and alcohol abuse but also teamwork, project management, people skills, research skills, graphics skills, as well as advertising and marketing.

The aim is harm prevention, changing the students’ culture from one of acceptance of illicit drug and alcohol abuse to one of non-acceptance.

The program ideally runs for about 12 weeks with two consecutive periods per week. Apart from the initial couple of lessons, the students then run the program and set the pace, with Rotary involvement and guidance.

A Rotarian runs the classes with the teacher.

What surprised the Rotarians working with the program was the students’ lack of knowledge of the consequences of drug use and alcohol abuse.

A follow-up of the students who participated in the pilots showed none had taken drugs or were tempted, and some had tried to persuade others not to use them.

The program was launched with the help of the late actor and boxing celebrity Gus Mercurio, and the Reservoir Bus Company. The program students were set the task of marketing the idea that illicit drugs and

The Rotary Club of Preston, Victoria, took on a herculean task in 2007 – To change the Drug Culture of Australia.

Thus ‘BE a REBEL & REBEL AGAINST DRUGS’ was born. alcohol abuse are not cool. The result – posters to go on local buses with the co-operation of the bus company plus a student-produced mural, and “show” bags for the rest of the school with anti-drug information.

Main picture: Students and Rotarians – united in the fight against drug use. Above: The students are given a daily reminder with the ‘Join the Rebellion’ bus poster.

(More pictures overleaf).

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Join the Rebellion – Preston Rotarians and school students combine in the campaign.

Kick Drugs Out – students use football as a tool in their anti-drugs campaign at Preston.

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BUILDING A HAVEN FOR

Tough-times kids

Typo Station, a property in northern Victoria, has been through tough times.

Named after nearby Mt Typo, it was for many years, in the early part of the 20th century, a cattle grazing property, then a mixed farm with crops, sheep & dairying.

The bushfires of January 13, 1939, caused so much damage that it became unviable, and since then has been through many changes in use.

In 1993, the property was left to the Rotary Club of Appin Park, which looked into many possibilities to use it. Eventually a youth worker, Matt Pfahlert, persuaded the club to let him develop the property as a haven for young men going through tough times - having difficulties at home or the community. The program he put in is called Evolve at Typo Station.

Now, young people live on the property for four weeks, then have ongoing mentoring. The program incorporates principles of simple living, community involvement, and practical activities. The young people learn basic skills and living skills, go on an eight to nine day expedition, and go on home visits.

More than 500 disadvantaged and at-risk youth have been helped at Typo Station.

Evolve at Typo Station is not-for-profit and publiclyfunded, running on donations, corporate sponsorship and support from organisations such as Rotary.

While Evolve began as a course for young males, it has become co-ed over the past three years. However, the facilities were not suitable for mixed sex groups only one shower block and two single toilets.

Shepparton Central Rotary Club has supported

Evolve for a number of years, having previously built a toilet block next to the kitchen and dining area. When that was finished the club decided to build a shower and toilet block next to the bunkhouse, to cater for males, females and the disabled.

The project needed to be ecologically sustainable and able to operate on water collected on site and dispose of waste within the site.

It was designed with wood-fired furnaces for heating water and a sewage treatment system which recycles the treated water for irrigation of trees and plants on the property and split facilities. Club members have provided most of the work, from design, site survey and setout to construction of the building and its facilities.

Plumbers, carpenters and electricians completed some of the work, but many were volunteers.

Many of the materials came from local suppliers or at a discount. The equipment and tools were, in the main, supplied by members also. Apart from the vital labour and organization costs, the club put in about $7,000.

Thel value of the building and associated facilities is estimated at $300,000.

Main picture: Rotarians at work on building the Typo Station shower and toilet block.

Inset: The finished shower and toilet block in its rural setting

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Overseas students go

Down on

the Farm

International students close to starting formal university studies often need to extend their knowledge of the English language – and what better way to do it than down on the farm?

Each year the Rotary Club of Reservoir, Victoria, organises a rural farm experience for international students attending the Language Centre at the Bundoora campus of La Trobe University.

The project is supported by Rotary Clubs in rural areas and involves placing students from countries such as China, Afghanistan, Iran, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Vietnam, with Rotary host families for one week of their October semester break.

Last year 10 students took part in the project and, following a farm visit and BBQ at Baddaginnie, the students left with their host families to begin their week of country life which included milking cows, horse riding, and other farm activities they had not experienced before.

The project encourages the building of lasting friendships and cultural exchanges between the students and their host families – and think of all the new words they are learning, some not always useful at a university!

Rotary International invests hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on youth projects – the main one being International Youth Exchange which enables students from one country to spend a year at school in another country. The long term benefits of this program are enormous both for the students and their hosts.

Pictures clockwise from Left: Making friends with a rather large rooster.

Young people like nothing better than horsing around.

The girls are a little sheepish about feeding the sheep.

We bet this is the first time he has bottle-fed anything.

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Kevin and the

BUSHFIRES When bushfires ravaged Victoria in 2009, people from all over Australia supported the thousands who lost loved ones, property and their livelihoods. One of the more unusual helpers must have been Kevin.

Kevin worked with the Rotary Club of East Shepparton to raise money for the children who lived in the areas affected by the bushfires. At the end of the campaign, Kevin, carrying the $1,000 he helped raise, was given to the Mobile Toy Library.

Kevin was the namesake of a former member of the club who had moved to Melbourne and so had no further use for his badge. He just happened also to be the namesake of a well-known Federal politician.

Kevin stayed with many of the club members as a guest in their homes. He was taken on outings, sitting on many shop and office counters, including the AMCAL chemist, Centrelink and WorkTrainers, all in the name of revenue-raising. He also attended a big dance in Shepparton where he helped sell raffle tickets. He even spent time at the hospital – as a visitor only.

Being a fitness fanatic Kevin donned his Lycra and took to the streets on his bike and in the process met one of Shepparton’s infamous icons – one of the painted cows. A quiet whisper in the cow’s ear and Kevin was off to raise more money. He even devoted some of his time to Meals on Wheels. So even whilst fundraising, he managed some time for community service.

But it wasn’t all local, as Kevin attended the changeover dinner of the Rotary Club of Bright and while in Bright also visited the Berry Farm, the Bakery and the Ovens Pub. In all areas, people were happy to give and Kevin went home with more than $300.

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Kevin’s journey ended at East Shepparton’s annual changeover dinner when Kevin and all the money he raised were given to the Mobile Toy Library.

Main picture: Kevin flies the flag in the bakery at Bright.

Above: Kevin was loved by all – even the dogs!

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WOMEN in Rotary

A long and bitter battle to have women accepted into Rotary has been well and truly won!

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Women have had a long battle for acceptance in Rotary but today, 20 years after the doors were opened to them, women are playing just as important role in Rotary as the men. The glass ceiling has not yet been completely shattered, but women are working their way into the higher echelons of Rotary.

When Rotary was founded in 1905, it was a men-only organisation. And it stayed that way for more than 80 years with the constitution and by-laws of Rotary laying down that club membership was for men only.

There were several roles for women. Wives were nicknamed Rotaryannes (largely sniffed at today), and their contribution was limited to supper production and social organisation. Women could join the women-only Inner Wheel, a club within a club, which still operates, undertaking Rotary-style programs and projects.

Young women between 14 and 28 could join Interact or Rotaract, as well as study abroad under Youth Exchange. And women were permitted to attend meetings as visitors, give speeches and receive awards.

The break didn’t come until 1978, when the Rotary Club of Duarte, California, in a blow for equality, invited three women to become members.

The Rotary International Board withdrew the club’s charter for breaching the constitution, so the club went to the Californian courts, citing a state civil rights law that prevents discrimination in business establishments or public accommodations.

The Californian courts supported the Duarte position that Rotary could not remove the club’s charter merely for inducting women into the club. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the California courts. This action in 1987 allowed women to become Rotarians in any jurisdiction having similar “public accommodation” statutes.

Rotary International surrendered in 1989, eliminating the “male only” provision for all of Rotary, allowing each club to decide whether it would have women members.

A dwindling number of clubs now cling to the men-only status. But there are also a few clubs made up entirely of women. Of the 1200 clubs in Australia, less than 10 per cent are men only.

Twenty years after the first women were admitted to Rotary, they make up nearly 15 per cent of total worldwide membership.

To become a district governor of Rotary (there are 534 districts in the world) a person must have been a member for seven years. And it was just seven years after 1989 that the first women district governors appeared in the United States.

The first woman District Governor in Australia was Judith Ward, from Balmain Rotary Club, chosen to head Rotary District 9750, the area south from Sydney to Wollongong in 2002-2003.

District 9680’s first woman District Governor, Pamela Pritchard, served in 2006-07. She started her working life as a teacher, then went into real estate marketing. She was followed in 2007-2008 by another woman – Monica Saville, who had a distinguished background in teaching.

Women have only recently broken through into the 19-member Rotary International Board of Directors, the top governing body of world Rotary.

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Top: From one lady District Governor to the next.

Above: Carolyn Jones, a trustee for the Rotary Foundation.

In 2008, Catherine Noyer-Riveau, a gynaecologist from the Rotary Club of Paris, France, became the first female R.I. Director, and at the end of her two-year term, Elizabeth Demaray, of Michigan, followed her onto the Board for 2011-13. The next step? Perhaps there will be a female world R.I. President.

Carolyn Jones, the first woman Rotary Foundation Trustee, said : “I cannot declare that we live in a perfect Rotary world where women are embraced in every corner of the world but I can say with absolute certainty that change is happening everywhere. And I look forward to the day when I will no longer be asked to give this speech about ‘Women in Rotary’. I look forward to the day when we will all just be Rotarians.”

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“We can end this suffering!”

POLIO ROTARY’S GREATEST CHALLENGE!

In November 2008, a nine-month-old Indian girl in the slums of East Delhi lay in the arms of Bill Gates Jr, one of the world’s richest men. She has polio.

“She obviously didn’t understand why people were poking her legs and looking so serious,” Gates told a Rotary conference in San Diego. “But she’ll never be able to kick a ball around, never be able to play hide and seek with her friends, because she has polio. As I held Hashmin, I thought, ‘We can end this’.”

Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he and his wife gave $US100million in 2007 to the Rotary Polio Eradication Program.

In January 2009, he told the San Diego Assembly of Rotary leaders the foundation would provide another $255million.

“Rotarians, government leaders, and health professionals have made a phenomenal commitment to get us to a point at which polio afflicts only a small number of the world’s children. However, complete elimination of the polio virus is difficult and will continue to be difficult for a number of years.

“Rotary in particular has inspired my own personal commitment to get deeply involved in achieving the eradication of polio.”

When Rotary entered the fight against polio in 1985, the organisation promised every child a world free from the threat of polio. Rotary clubs around the world have raised, and will continue to raise, huge sums to meet this promise.

Working with the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF and world government, Rotary has provided money for vaccine, volunteer support in distribution and delivering the vaccine to children, and helped national immunisation days throughout Asia and Africa. More than $1.2billion has been contributed to the effort, with a 99 per cent decline in the number of polio cases.

Continued overleaf

Sudanese children wait in line to be vaccinated.

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This young African boy contemplates his future.

The human spirit shines through the worst afflictions.

Europe, the Americas and Australia have been declared polio-free. Polio now remains in only four countries – India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, and imported cases from these endemic countries threaten other developing nations.

Said Bill Gates: “We don’t know exactly when the last child will be affected. But we do have the vaccines to wipe it out. Countries do have the will to deploy all the tools at their disposal. If we all have the fortitude to see this effort through to the end, then we will eradicate polio.”

When Rotary received the 2007 grant of $100million, Rotary committed to match it by raising $100 million.

The two Gates Foundation Challenge grants now total $355 million. Rotary’s effort in response is called Rotary’s $200million Challenge, which must be completed by June 30, 2012. At May 2011, Rotary has raised over $174 million towards the $200 million challenge.

The Gates grants, the largest ever received by Rotary in its 104-year history, will be distributed by Rotary through grants to WHO and UNICEF. 118

A young Pakistani child receives the vaccination.

At the time of the Gates announcement in San Diego, the government of the United Kingdom committed $150million, and the government of Germany committed $130million to eradicate polio.

Gates’s final comment: “The world would not be where it is without Rotary, and it won’t get where it needs to go without Rotary.”

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The future is based on a

FIRM FOUNDATION The Rotary Foundation is the only official charity of Rotary International.

It has been established to accept donations from Rotarians and non-Rotarians with the sole purpose of helping those less fortunate than ourselves.

Rotary International’s mission to achieve world understanding and peace is a lofty goal that can only be met through sustained action and the commitment of Rotarians. The achievement of this goal requires the efforts of all Rotarians, all clubs, all districts and the generous Australian public at large.

The Rotary Foundation had a modest beginning In 1917, when Rotary International President Arch Klumph told the delegates to the annual convention that “It seems eminently proper that we should accept endowments for the purpose of doing good in the world”. A year later, the Rotary Endowment Fund, as it was originally labelled, received its first contribution of US$26.50.

After six years the fund had reached only $700.

In 1947, on the death of Paul Harris, a new era opened for, what was now referred to as ‘The Rotary Foundation’. Memorial gifts poured in to honour the founder of Rotary and from that time, The Rotary Foundation has been achieving its noble objective of furthering “understanding and friendly relations between peoples of different nations.”

By 1954, the Foundation received for the first time a half million dollars in contributions in a single year, and in 1965 a million dollars was received.

The Rotary Foundation now receives more than $100

million each year for educational and humanitarian work around the world. In 2009 it received $US255 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, on top of a grant in 2007 of $US100 million grant from the Gates Foundation, all ear-marked for the Rotary Polio Eradication Program to eliminate poliomyelitis from the world.

These are some of the ways The Foundation helps make the world a better place: • It recognises and supports our young leaders. All clubs have the opportunity to search for and nominate suitable candidates for Ambassadorial Scholarships, Peace Fellowships or as Group Study Exchange team members.

• It financially supports club projects and encourages participation in both local and international projects by offering part-funding from the World Fund Community Assistance Program. It helps to fund a club’s local projects, and with transport grants, helps reduce a clubs’ overall costs. Through its matching grants, it can increase the value of the help a club can give to those in need.

• It gives the opportunity to help improve international goodwill. The Foundation pays for scholars and Group Study Exchange and Vocational Training teams to visit Districts in other parts of the world, Continued overleaf

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giving these people opportunities to learn about other cultures and countries. Participating in overseas projects and communicating with host clubs, enhances understanding and appreciation of other cultures.

• It improves the security of Australian families. The support of polio eradication and malaria prevention programs in our region helps reduce the risk of these diseases taking a hold in our country. The Rotary Foundation programs help to bring differing nations together in harmony, developing friendships, ties and goodwill. This increases understanding between nations and lessens the risk of conflict.

• It builds personal knowledge and networks. The Foundation requires many Rotarians to form various District and regional committees to support Foundation programs. These committees in turn offer an opportunity to develop new networks, experience international goodwill and learn about new cultures first hand.

The Rotary Foundation is one of the few charitable organisations where the funds donated are used on humanitarian and educational projects. Administration 120

costs are met by the interest earned through the investment of contributions for a three-year period before those contributions are used in the projects specified by the donors.

Contributions can be made to The Rotary Foundation through the Australian Rotary Foundation Trust, which gives tax deductibility for contributions made in Australia. For your convenience, printed donation slips are printed on the opposite page.

For further information regarding contributions, call PDG Bruce Allen on 02 8894 9840 Clockwise from top left: Children pose for a picture in Nueva Esperanza, Honduras, a Rotary-built community for survivors of Hurricane Mitch.

Mariana Ponce rebuilds her life thanks to a microcredit from Grupo Unido Valle de Angelos.

Rotarians at work following the Hurrican Mitch devastation.

The daughter of a tailor who’s father received a microcredit loan from the Nueva Esperanza Foundation.

All pictures copyright: Rotary Images/Monica Lozinska Lee.

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List of Rotary Clubs in Districts featured in this magazine

Clubs of District 9500:

Adelaide; Adelaide East; Adelaide EDGE; Adelaide Light; Adelaide Parks; Adelaide South; Adelaide West; Alice Springs; Alice Springs Mbantua; Barossa District; Barossa Valley; Charles Sturt-Grange; Clare; Elizabeth; Flinders Park; Gawler; Gawler Light; Golden Grove; Henley Beach; Kangaroo Island; Kapunda; Kidman Park; Largs Bay; Maitland; Makin Edge; Mawson Lakes; Modbury; Munno Para; North Adelaide; Northern Yorke Peninsula; Peterborough; Playford; Port Adelaide; Port Augusta; Port Lincoln; Port Pirie; Prospect; Prospect Sunrise.

Clubs of District 9520:

Barmera; Berri; Blackwood; Blakiston; Brighton; Broken Hill; Broken Hill South; Brownhill Creek; Burnside; Campbelltown; Coromandel Valley; Eastwood; Edwardstown; Encounter Bay; Flagstaff Hill; Glenelg; Goolwa; Hallett Cove; Holdfast Bay; Hyde Park; Irymple; Kent Town; Lameroo; Loxton; Magill Sunrise; Marion; McLaren Vale; Merbein; Mildura; Mildura Deakin; Mitcham; Mobilong; Morialta; Mount Barker; Murray Bridge; Noarlunga; Noarlunga East; Norwood; Onkaparinga; Red Cliffs; Renmark; Robinvale Euston; Somerton Park; South Mildura; St Peters; Stirling; Strathalbyn; Tailem Bend; Unley; Victor Harbor; Waikerie; Wentworth; Yankalilla.

Clubs of District 9600:

Albany Creek; Albion; Alexandra Headland; Ashgrove/The Gap; Aspley; Bribie Island; Brisbane; Brisbane Airport; Brisbane High-Rise; Brisbane Mid-City; Brisbane Planetarium; Buderim; Caboolture; Caloundra; Caloundra Pacific; Cooroy; Fortitude Valley; Geebung; Glasshouse Mountains: Gympie; Gympie-Cooloola; Hamilton; Karana Downs; Kawana Waters; Kenmore; Kingaroy; Kingaroy-Taabinga; Kippa-Ring; Maleny; Maroochydore; Mitchelyon; Mooloolaba; Murgon; Nambour; Nambour 76; Noosa; Noosa Heads; Noosa Heads Daybreak; North Lakes; Nundah; Pine Rivers; Pine Rivers Daybreak; Redcliffe City; Redcliffe Sunrise; Samford Valley; Sandgate; Stafford; Strathpine; Toowong; West Brisbane Daybreak; Windsor; Woombye-Palmwoods.

Papua New Guinea: Boroko; Bulolo-Wau; Goroka; Huon Gulf; Kavieng; Kokopo; Kundiawa; Lae; Madang; Mount Hagen; Port Moresby.

Solomon Islands: Gizo; Honiara. Nauru: Nauru.

Clubs of District 9630:

Acacia Ridge; Archerfield; Balmoral; Beenleigh; Booval; Brisbane Centenary; Capalaba; Carindale; Charleville; Chinchilla; Cleveland; Dalby; Forest Lake; Gatton & Lockyer; Goodna; Ipswich; Ipswich City; Ipswich North; Jandowae; Jindalee; Logan: Loganholme; Mitchell; Moreton Bay; Mt Gravatt; Pittsworth; Port of Brisbane; Redland Sunrise; Redlands Bayside; Rocklea; Roma; St George; Salisbury; South Brisbane; Stones Corner; Sumner Park; Sunnybank Hills; Toowoomba; Toowoomba City; Toowoomba East; Toowoomba Garden City; Toowoomba North; Wellington Point; Wishart; Wooloongabba; Wynnum & Manly.

Clubs of District 9640:

Allora: Alstonville; Ashmore; Ballina; Ballina-on-Richmond; Beaudesert; Boonah; Broadbeach; Broadwater/Southport; Burleigh Heads; Byron Bay; Casino; Coolangatta/Tweed Heads; Coomera Valley; Coomera River Midday; Fassifern Valley; Glen Innes; Gold Coast; Goonallabah; Goondiwindi; Grafton; Grafton Midday; Hope Island; Iluka Woombah; Jimboomba; Kingscliffe; Kirra/Currumbin; Kyogle; Lismore; Lismore Central; Lismore West; Mermaid Beach; Maclean; Mt Warning AM; Mudgeeraba; Mullumbimby; Murwillumbah; Murwillumbah Central; Nerang; Palm Beach; Parkwood; Robina; Runaway Bay; Southport; Southport North; Stanthorpe; Summerland Sunrise; Surfers Paradise; Surfers Sunrise; Tenterfield; Tweed Coast; Tweed Heads South; Warwick; Warwick Sunrise; Yamba.

Clubs of District 9680:

Becroft; Belrose; Berowra; Brookvale; Carlingford; Castle Hill; Chatswood; Chatswood International; Chatswood Sunrise; Crows Nest; Dee Why Warringah; Dural; East Gosford; Eastwood; Frenchs Forest; Galston; Gosford; Gosford City; Gosford North; Gosford West; Hornsby; Hunters Hill; Kariong/Summersby; Kenthurst; Kincumber; Ku-Ring-Gai; Lane Cove; Lindfield; Macquarie Park; Manly; Manly Sunrise; Mosman; Narrabeen Lakes; Neutral Bay; North Rocks; North Ryde; North Sydney; North Sydney Sunrise; Northbridge; Northlakes/Toukley; Northwest Sunrise; Pennant Hills; Pittwater; Roseville Chase; Rouse Hill; Ryde; St Ives; St Leonards; Terry Hills; Terrigal; The Entrance; The Hills/Kellyville; Thornleigh; Turramurra; Umina Beach; Wahroonga; Waitara; West Pennant Hills & Cherrybrook; Winston Hills; Woy Woy; Wyong/Tuggerah.

Clubs of District 9700:

Bathurst; Bathurst Daybreak; Bathurst East; Blayney; Boorowa; Canowindra; Condobolin; Coolamon; Cootamundra; Cowra; Forbes; Forbes Ipomoea; Grenfell; Griffith; Griffith Avanti; Griffith East; Hay; Henty; Junee; Lake Cargelligo; Leeton; Leeton Central; Lockhart; Molong; Murrumburrah-Harden; Narrandera; Oberon; Orange; Orange Calare; Orange Daybreak; Orange North; Parkes; South Wagga Wagga; Temora; Wagga Wagga; Wagga Wagga Kooringal; Wagga Wagga Murrumbidgee; Wagga Wagga Sunrise; West Wyalong; Wollundry-Wagga Wagga; Yenda; Young.

Clubs of District 9710:

Aurora-Gungahlin; Batemans Bay; Batlow; Bega; Belconnen; Berrima District; Berry-Gerringong; Bomaderry; Bombala; Bowral Mittagong; Bungendore; Canberra; Canberra Burley Griffin; Canberra City; Canberra East; Canberra Fyshwick; Canberra North; Canberra South; Canberra Sunrise; Canberra Weston Creek; Cooma; Crookwell; Gerringong Sunrise; Ginninderra; Goulburn; Goulburn-Argyle; Goulburn Mulwaree; Gungahlin; Hall; Jerrabomberra; Merimbula; Milton Ulladulla; Moruya; Moss Vale; Narooma; Nowra; Pambula; Queanbeyan; Queanbeyan West; Shoalhaven Sunrise; South Nowra; Sussex Inlet; Tuggeranong; Tumbarumba; Tumut; Woden; Woden Daybreak; Yass.

Clubs of District 9790:

Albury; Albury Hume; Albury North; Albury West; Alexandra; Appin Park Wangaratta; Beechworth; Bellbridge Lake Hume; Belvoir Wodonga; Benalla; Bright; Broadmeadows; Bundoora; Cobram; Coburg; Corowa; Corryong; Craigieburn; Deniliquin; Diamond Creek; East Shepparton; Eltham; Euroa; Finley; Goulburn; Goulbourne-Argyle; Goulburn Mulwaree; Greensborough; Heidelberg; Holbrook; Ivanhoe; Kinglake Ranges; Kyabram; Lavington; Mansfield; Milawa Oxley; Mooroopna; Moreland; Mount Beauty; Myrtleford; Nathalia; Numurkah; Pascoe Vale; Preston; Reservoir; Riddells Creek; Romsey Lancefield; Rosanna; Rutherglen; Seymour; Shepparton; Shepparton Central; Shepparton South; Southern Mitchell; Strathmore; Sunbury; Tallangatta; Tatura; Tocumwal; Wangaratta; Whittlesea; Wodonga; Wodonga West; Yarrawonga Mulwala; Yea.

Clubs of District 9690:

Bankstown; Blackheath; Blacktown City; Breakfast Point; Burwood; Cabramatta; Central Blue Mountains; Concord; Granville; Hawkesbury; Holroyd; Katoomba; Kurrajong-North Richmond; Liverpool; Liverpool Greenway; Liverpool West; Lower Blue Mountains; Mt. Druitt; Nepean; Padstow; Parramatta; Parramatta City; Parramatta Daybreak; Penrith; Penrith Valley; Revesby Wirrimbirra; Richmond; Springwood; St. Marys; Strathfield; Upper Blue Mountains Sunrise; Wallacia-Mulgoa Valley; Wetherill Park; Windsor.

Full details of these clubs are available online. Simply Google: Rotary and the 4 digit district number or phone: 1 300 4 Rotary (1300 4 768 279).

This magazine contains a selection of stories from Rotary Clubs in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia. Northern Territory and Queensland.

The stories typify the projects that Rotary Clubs are involved in to help those less fortunate than ourselves. Whilst we live in â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Lucky Countryâ&#x20AC;?, there are 2.5 billion people around the world who survive on less than $2.00 a day.

If you have high ethical and social standards, enjoy the fellowship of like-minded people and get pleasure from helping others, you are a ready-made Rotarian.

Why not talk to someone you know to be a Rotarian or, contact your local Rotary club for more details? You will be made most welcome.

This copy has been made available by: