Dear
Orscelik & Afet,
Now
we are in the 12th week of our Rotary year. With
a
growing numberof contributors,the newsletter
is
offering more information and contact
opportunities in each issue. Read
below about some remarkable and
heartwarming
Humanitarian projects. You might
find one
to suggest a future partner. Read
about the
first African offer to host a
Rotary
Project Safari. Many
more invitations are
expected in future months.
See the letter from the
elected leader of
Uganda praising the work of
Rotarians. See
PRID Balkan’s guarantee that
www.reachouttoafrica.org
is virus free.
Forward
your copy to friends and encourage them to
join
our mailing list.
Send
us your story for future publication.
Thomas (Tom) Branum, ROTA Chairman
|
PRID Örsçelik Balkan,
Vice-Chair |
 Hello Fellow
Rotarians,
In this edition I
will give clarification on the virus
attack to our web site.
Virus
Attack: We have
been
working seriously on the “virus claim”
extended to
our web site. Quite a number of our
fellow
Rotarians received virus warnings when
they
attempted to visit our web site. This was
a
surprise for us, because we never had
such
complaints during the last three years
of
operation since our site has been
installed.
We made several checks until we stopped
the virus entry. We found out that we were open
to
attacks through the “calendar link” that
we
installed this year. So, we temporarily
deleted
this link, keeping its logo on the
front page. We
tested the web site in this
format, by
interactions from various sources in
Turkey,
Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Germany and
found out that
the problem is over. Our experts
proved that the
obstacle was related to the
“linkage” of the
“calendar” site.
Therefore, I decided to keep the logo of
the calendar at the front page as it is, but
to
give a link through it into a new section
“inside
our web” called “calendar of events”.
From
now on, we shall follow up the
calendar of events
separately and display them
in the new section of
our web prepared by our
staff. Anyone interested
about the events will
be able to visit that
section directly from the
front page or by
clicking on this section in
the menu inside the
web. On the other side, our
special site focused
on the calendar of events
will continue its
operation, but with no link
to the ROTA web
site.
Security: As to the
security of our web site, I am reported the
following information:
- ROTA site is prepared in a format to
avoid
virus entries by web tools that do not
allow
survival of script language. The site
is scanned
by Nod 32 Business edition
anti-virus system
after every updating,
before the deliveries to
the host
servers.
- In order to avoid virus attacks, ports
are
closed to entries of outside
servers.
- Servers are continuously scanned by
special
anti-virus software.
So, everyone can visit our web site
safely
now, as accustomed since three
years.
Best regards,
Orscelik Balkan
|
Did
you Know that you can click on blue words that
are
underlined
to
take you to that
person or place? |
These clickable
links make it
easy for you to navigate to
any place of
interest mentioned in this
newsletter.
|
| NEWS
ABOUT THE ROTA
REGIONS |
|
|
An Invitation To Visit Africa |
 Are you a
Rotarian willing to pay your own travel
and
lodging costs to spend several days meeting
with
African members, being a tourist, and
looking
at project opportunities?
Consider President Klinginsmith’s Rotary
Project Safari. The guidelines are
published
at the end of this newsletter and on
our website..
Here is
our first invitation. Contact them
if
interested..
ROTARY CLUB
OF
UYO DISTRICT 9140
NIGERIA
Samuel Edet, President of Rotary Club Of
Uyo Metropolis (D-9140) Nigeria, reports
that his club would like to to host the
Rotarians that will want to come and visit
Nigeria. He says, “We are based in
Akwa Ibom State in the South South zone of the
country we meet at Amity Hotels LTD Plot 1B
Ewet Housing Estate Uyo Akwa Ibom State
Nigeria. We meet every Sunday
at 4.30 p.m. for 5:00 p.m. You can reach
us through our email links for the President
and the Secretary.” **If
you are an African club or
district who
would like to host such a group for a
few days,
you can post your interest at http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103600120537&s=10&e=001m3AYUqwuciXHWsgm3jkpjaByXqUsnv9Nv5szj3tkfKpEJU_3OlqKiuAx-iNAsqPhvrIXyxFElW72qzC2ee1ZKn7fiVviZ3gfzbInAwh07OeH8TGMI2ckS-Cf9RxlLlox.
Look for an interactive website
soon.**
|
A Letter From the President of
Uganda |
 |
Send
Us Your Stories |
Sharing experiences
and helping people
meet each other
contributes to our objectives.
We typically
include contact information with
every article
published here. Please
limit to 150
words with one action photo.
|
Sadness
beyond words. |
|
Kevin
Carter,
the South African photographer whose
image of a
starving Sudanese toddler stalked by
a vulture won
him a Pulitzer Prize in April
1994, was so
troubled by that image that he
committed suicide
in July of that same year.
The famous photo was
published first in The New
York Times and The Mail
& Guardian , a
Johannesburg weekly. Mr Carter
said the little
girl resumed her trek to the
feeding centre. He
chased away the vulture. There
is no record of
her presence there.
Afterwards,
he
told an interviewer, he sat under a tree for
a
long time, “smoking cigarettes and
crying”.
Excerpts from his suicide note
include: “I am
haunted by the vivid memories of
killings &
corpses & anger & pain …
of starving or
wounded children, of
trigger-happy madmen, often
police, of killer
executioners…”
As Rotarians we
go beyond
observation… We DO something to make
changes in
our world: Building Communities –
Bridging
Continents!
|
A
Quickly Completed Water Project in
Kenya |
|
As soon as I made contact
in December
2009 with Secretary George Mbugua and
President
Tej Shah of the Rotary Club of Nairobi
Industrial Area, I realized I had found some
hard-working Rotary partners. We began making
plans to fund a water well for a medical
dispensary located near the village of Miguta
about 50 km north of Nairobi. The dispensary
serves a catchment population of 15,000 people
and
sees 150 patients daily. A stronger source
of
clean water immediately adjacent to the
dispensary
was needed badly.
Our matching grant project was
developed to
drill a well, erect a 10,000 liter
storage
tank, and build a small machine building
to
house the generator. The application was
submitted in February 2010, approved in March,
with funds arriving in April. With no World
Fund
match available, this was a partnership of
funds
from many sources, including the Rotary
Club of
Nairobi Industrial Area, District
6200-Louisiana,
District 9200-Africa, the
Philip and Kathleen
Silvers Donor Advised Fund
and the Clean Water for
Coffee Producing
Countries Donor Advised Fund. The
well was
completed by the end of April.
Construction of
the water tower and tank and
machine shed was
also underway. The final plumbing
work was
completed in early July and the
successful
project was handed over the community
on July
24, 2010.
Contact George
Mbugua in RC Nairobi
Industrial Area, for
more information.
Thanks to
D-6060 DG
Todd Lindley for
this
article.
|
Les
Principaux Cours d’Eau, un Projet de District
en
1660 et 9100. |
 (Suite
de la newsletter
Juillet)
Projet 3 – L’eau dans
l’école de GouetimbaAprès
ou pendant la
rénovation de cette école, le
village offre un
puits et un château d’eau,
mais il est conseillé
aux écoles d’installer un
système de récupération,
de stockage
(réservoir) et le traitement des eaux
de pluie
et à une pompe alimentée par des panneaux
solaires pour fournir de la distribution et
réservoir d’alimentation en saison
sèche.
Projet 4 –
Rénovation
d’une maison à 3 enseignants à
Singouin
Il ya 8 ans, l’école,
Singouin situé 13 km au nord de l’Homme, a été
rénové avec l’aide du Rotary. Depuis l’école
un
grand succès alors que trois enseignants
supplémentaires sont nécessaires et nous
devons
donc fournir des revêtements de bonne
volonté
locale, portes, fenêtres, plomberie,
électricité
et peinture.
et déjà la
planification
future …
Situé
sur le territoire de
notre club partenaire de
San Pedro, en 2005,
l’école du village a été
rénové. Aujourd’hui, il
serait de rénover
l’école primaire de 6
classes.
|
USA
Interact Students Visit South Africa |
The Rotary Club
of
Knoxville (D6780) initiated the South
Africa
Outreach Discovery Team in order for
Webb School
Interact members to discover how
Rotary projects
that the club had funded during
the past seven
years in Knynsa, ZA were working
and, also, to
discover possible future
collaborative, cost
effective and sustainable
projects where students
could help.
Three
Interact students, all 17, and team leader,
Erin
Bernstein (a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar
who had
worked in Africa) traveled to Cape
Town, then to
Knysna, then to Stanford, ZA.
There they worked
with a new Rotary club that
has many programs to
help children in the
townships. The students
reported that their
experiences had been life
changing. They worked
at Rotary sponsored
pre-schools, sports
programs, vocational training
programs, fed
breakfast to migrant workers, worked
with
Interact students, relocated playground
equipment, learned energy efficient ways to
cook,
distributed hundreds of children’s’
books,
collected before they departed, and
visited Robben
Island and climbed Table
Mountain.
They will
present their
new outreach project to the
Knoxville Rotarians, a
project that they and
their new South Africa
contacts have determined
will be beneficial to all
concerned. Interact
students will raise funds
which the Knoxville
club will match.
These teens are pros at building
communities
and bridging continents!
See http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103600120537&s=10&e=001m3AYUqwuciVLtqlJHDiwB9XZ2el-xHaMqZHX6pZDrWkph32q_cB2VBGZpsA9CWzQQYPz6_tWzMXb8EynYTBwRbTvtyM1W5bIZ1O3WIEKCG5AXPfOeEKe1YGGfqQNBQ6a_PNYKOla7VU=
Thanks to D5780 PDG
Townes
Osborne for this
story.
|
Mosiro
Kenya Water Project Update |
|
Construction started in June 2010 to
replace
the “leaning tower of water” that was
their
storage facility for clean water.
That
inadequate and dangerous tank with its
tiny hose
bibs was never more than ½ full
because, if
filled, it would collapse. A
single 2″
spigot brought water to the place
where women
could slowly fill containers, one
at a time, and a
water trough for the animals
consisted of one 50
gallon drum split in half;
scarcely more than two
cattle could be watered
at a time. A new scaffold
holds a much larger
tank with adequate watering
capabilities and a
huge trough will allow the
herds to be watered
quickly.
Now the pipes are being laid, pumps
engaged
and tanks constructed that will bring
the
life-giving water to the birthing clinic at
Ongata
and to each of the schools along the
way.
The USD 100,000 investment in which 75% of
district 5490′s clubs participated will make
life for that child just a bit better. To view
more of the project please follow this link
|
Rwanda: Rwamagana Lutheran
School |
In
2005, the Rwanda School
Project incorporated in
the USA, stating in its
mission that “secondary
and continuing education
is an important key to
Rwanda’s recovery, growth
and continuing
peace”. Focusing on professional
development
for teachers and a school culture that
values
honesty, teamwork and trust, The Rwamagana
Lutheran School began its first class of Form
1
for 24 students in 2010.
Using a framework called
Expeditionary
Learning, students are encouraged to
take
responsibility for their learning by setting
study goals, keeping a portfolio of their
work,
doing significant reading and writing,
and
presenting what they learn to peers and
community
members. Inquiry-based math and
science help
students to see purpose and
reasoning behind
formulae and community service
is required for
graduation. Though a mixed
school, close attention
is given to girls’
needs.
The campus will be a working model
for
sustainability in recognition of Rwanda’s
particular environmental needs, using solar
power,
bio-gas digesters, water catchment,
farming and
gardening techniques (such as drip
irrigation,
zero-grazing and erosion
protection.)
Rotary Club of Kigali Gasabo and
Rotary
Clubs in Santa Clara, California are
committed
to support this initiative because this
school
places a heavy emphasis on:
- community service and real-world
learning;
- literacy across the curriculum, strong
math
skills taught with inquiry-based
methodology and
strong focus on teacher
teamwork and pedagogical
development.
|
Help
Stop Sickle Cell Disease In Nigeria |
|
Sickle
cell
disease (SCD) affects 20-25 million
people
worldwide. Each year, 300,000 babies are
born with
SCD. It causes shortage of
blood, recurrent
pains, and immense
psycho-social and economic
burden on patients
and their communities.
The Rotary Club of
Enugu, District 9140,
plans a community service
project to
include:
- Raising
public
awareness of SCD and the way it is
inherited; to
reduce the number of children
born with the
condition (~USD $5,000/yr).
- Screening
to
identify SCD patients and carriers of the
gene
(~USD $5,000/yr).
- Medical
Services to ameliorate the burden of SCD on
the
community (~USD $60,000/yr).
We invite
other
Rotary Clubs to bridge continents and
join hands
with us to help stop sickle. Our
Club has many
years experience of fruitful
partnership with
other Clubs in executing
projects that help to
build communities.
For further
information,
please contact Professor
Iheanyi
Okpala, President 2010 – 2011.
|
DGN
Sandra Foster On Her Way to Malawi (D-9210)
from
Texas (D-5810) |
|
DGN Sandra
Foster (D-5810, North Texas) is introduced to
me
by one of our ROTA Supporters PDG David
McSpaden
of the same District. Sandra is now on
her way to
Mzuzu and Livingstonia Malawi. Her
agenda includes
services like;
- Scholarship
of
H.O.P.E. (Helping Others by Providing
Education)
- The
Livingstonia Water System Project
- SHOES –
Funds
donated by the Rockwall Breakfast
Interact Club
and the Rockwall Breakfast RC
She also
plans
to visit the RC of Muzuizu, Malawi which
has
declined in membership and needs
encouragement and
guidance for
leadership.
Our
ROTA
Team of Southern Africa Region, Chair June
C.
Webber, Vice-Chair Josh Chimhanda, and
Committee
Member (Literacy), PDG Michael
Johnson immediately
contacted Sandra and
offered help through our
network in the area.
Sandra is now communicating
with the ROTA team,
sharing her plans and knowing
that she is not
alone. I extend our thanks to our
ROTA team as
I congratulate DGN Sandra for her
outstanding
service on behalf of
D-5810.
Cover the
highlights of membership and any discounts or
special benefits for new members. Remind them
why
they are interested in being a
member.
Thanks
to
ROTA Vice-Chair PRID Orscelik Balkan for
this
article.
|
|
Five
Rotary Clubs From Mid-Hampshire, England Work
With
the Rotary Club of Inchanga,
KwaZulu-Natal, South
Africa |
The
2009-2010
theme “The Future of Rotary is in
Your Hands”
motivated five clubs in
mid-Hampshire and the
Rotary Club of Inchanga
to refurbish two
classrooms in a primary school
in a township in
the Valley of a Thousand
Hills. The area is
extremely poor with many
AIDS orphans. Most of the
parents that exist
are unemployed and unable to
pay school fees.
The School provides education, a
caring
environment and lunch each day. The Rotary
Club
of Inchanga provides a maize breakfast for
the
children. In many cases these are the only
proper meals the children get. The school is
their
lifeline.
The six Rotary
Clubs concentrated on
repairing the roof of the
school building to
bring 2 classrooms into use.
These were
redecorated and equipment and furniture
was
provided.
The funds for the Inchanga
Primary School
were supplemented with a Rotary
District
Simplified Grant and was a step towards
the
2010-2011 theme “Building Communities Bridging
Continents”.
Margaret Turnbull of the
Hillcrest AIDS
Centre Charity that works with
local
organizations assisted with the project. See
their website http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103600120537&s=10&e=001m3AYUqwuciUdyr9nPiLqNWyQqSecfR_l63NWnRaZhxBT8Ut8lK7qekvJnC5TUN-kt0M3m65LY6W_JlKj78hw06oo0A9Xvf8ocn0uH9nZYRRxEzKz0wm9v1gjld96A82P
Thanks to UK Rotarian reg_ling@hotmail.com
for this story.
|
Invitation From RI
Director Sam
Owori
|
|
RI Director Sam Owori invites
you
to
ROTARY
INTERNATIONAL ZONE
20A INSTITUTE
SEPTEMBER 14
-19,
2010
MUNYONYO
COMMONWEALTH
RESORT
HOSTED BY DISTRICT 9200, KAMPALA
UGANDA
Registration is now open!
Members of the ROTA
Committee hope
to see you there.
|
PRID
Thomas Branum, Sr., Chairman |
|
The
Last
Word
Nearly every day ROTA messages await me;
perhaps news about a favored project, or
someone
seeking information about a future
Rotary endeavor
in Africa, or asking for help
with a difficult
issue. My response is nearly
always to send an
answer back
immediately.
Often I forward these inquiries to one of
the eight ROTA Regional Chairs or Vice Chairs.
I
call them “The ROTA 8.” They are
influential
African people who know other
influential African
people. Recently, following
an inquiry from
California, a Regional Chair
contacted a
knowledgeable public official for
help with a
customs issue involving importation
of donated
medical
supplies.
In addition, each of the four ROTA
Regions
has subcommittees made up of “people
who know
people,” as is true in every
Rotary club
around the world. If you need ROTA
advice or help,
see names of the ROTA 8 above
or go to www.reachouttoafrica.org
for subcommittees.
Yours in Rotary,
Please address any
questions or comments to Thomas
Branum at Email.
|
|
Guidelines For Rotary Project
Safaris
|
As Proposed by
Ray
Klinginsmith for Initial Safaris in
2010-11
The
following
guidelines are suggested for Rotary
Project
Safaris to encourage and enable
Rotarians to visit
Rotary projects in countries
other than their
own.
Team
Members. The safari teams will be
composed of five to eight Rotarians, who will
view
and evaluate Rotary projects for the
purpose of
encouraging financial support for
such projects
upon their return home. The
teams may
include non-Rotarian spouses of the
team members,
if the spouses are willing to
participate in all
of the project visits and to
actively promote
funding for the projects upon
their return home.
Sending
Clubs or Districts. Each safari team
will be sponsored by a Rotary club or a Rotary
district in the team’s home country.
Host
Clubs
or Districts. The visit of each
safari
team will be sponsored by a Rotary club
or a
Rotary district in a country other than
the team’s
home country.
Travel
Expenses. The travel expenses of the
safari team members will be paid by the team
members themselves, including the food and
lodging
expenses in the host country.
Local
transportation will be provided by the
host club
or district.
Length
of
Visit. The visit of a safari team to
a
host club or district will last no less than
five
days and no more than seven days, unless
the
sending club or district and the host club
or
district agree on an extended time.
The
safari team will be free to visit
other areas for
normal tourist activities,
either before or after
the period of the Rotary
safari, without
assistance of the host club or
district.
Responsibility
of Host
Club or District. The host club
or
district will furnish local transportation
for the
safari team to visit Rotary projects
and tourist
attractions in the host area with
approximately
one-half time allocated to
service projects that
need additional funding
and the other half to
tourist activities.
The host club or
district also will provide
opportunities for the
safari team to attend
Rotary club meetings and
other Rotary
activities. The host club or
district
also will make suitable arrangements for
the
safari team to stay in hotels or motels in the
local area. The expense of the local
hotel
or motels will be paid by the safari team
members,
and therefore, the team leader should
be consulted
in advance about the charges and
services of the
proposed hotels or
motels. The schedule of
activities for
each team will be provided well in
advance by
the host club or district.
Responsibility
of Sending Club or District. The
sending
club or district will verify that each
member of
the safari team is a Rotarian in good
standing
with his or her Rotary club or the
spouse of a
Rotarian in good
standing. All team
members must be
genuinely interested in helping to
develop and
fund Rotary service projects in the
host area.
Responsibility
of Team
Members. The safari team members
will
fulfill their responsibility to look for
viable
Rotary service projects in the host area
and to
seek funding for such projects when they
return
home. They also will be
responsible for all
of their own travel
expenses, including food and
lodging in the
host area. Local
transportation in the
host area, as needed for the
Rotary safari,
will be furnished by the host club
or district
at no expense to the team
members.
Safaris
Not
Limited to Africa. Although the
safari name
usually connotes trips to Africa,
the Rotary
Project Safaris may be arranged
between clubs and
districts anywhere in the
Rotary world.
The
Four Way
Test. One of the purposes of
the Rotary
Project Safaris is to develop
cooperative
relationships between Rotary clubs
and districts,
and Rotarians involved in the
safaris should be
sure that the trips are
beneficial to all
concerned.
Similar
Rotary
Activities. It is recognized that
many
Rotary clubs and districts are already
engaged in
humanitarian service projects and
visits in a
manner similar to the Rotary
Project
Safaris. The safaris are not
intended to
replace or supplant any existing
activities, but
merely to provide a framework
for additional
Rotary clubs and districts to
become involved in
international service
projects.
Areas
of
Focus. It is recommended that the
host
clubs and districts give first priority
to
projects within the six areas of focus of
the TRF
Future Vision Plan. It also is
recommended
that the host club or district
communicate well in
advance with the team
leader about the type of
projects that will
shown to the team members in
order for the
interests of the team members to be
suitably
matched to the projects to be visited in
the
host areas.
That’s all
the
guidelines as of 8 August 2010. More
may be
needed as we gain experience, but let’s
try to
keep the program as simple as
possible. The
objective is to assist
Rotarians in visiting
districts where funding
for international service
projects is truly
needed, and it is my observation
that when
Rotarians see the effects of poverty,
they
respond generously and effectively. So
we
can now utilize our knowledge of Rotary
friendship exchanges and NIDs to improve our
network of Rotary humanitarian projects around
the
globe! We can do even better what
Rotary
does best, which is Building Communities
-
Bridging Continents!
|
|
| |
Quick
Links |
Africa
Matching Grant
Opportunities
RIP
Ray’s Capetown Reunions 3-5
February
mavrod@iafrica.com
|
LOOK
AT THE ROTA WEBSITE OFTEN FOR IMPORTANT
INFORMATION |
|
|
You are invited to send postings to Vice
Chair Orscelik Balkan Email
or Email
such as:
- Names and contact information of
Regional
ROTA Subcommittee members
- Calendar of and links to coming events
of
interest to ROTA supporters.
- Humanitarian projects to be posted on
the
Virtual Projects Fair.
- Expressions of interest in RIPE
Klinginsmith’s Rotary Projects
Safari.
|
|
Send Us Your
Stories
|
|
|
In your own words, write in English,
French, Arabic, or Portuguese about a project
or an opportunity in 150 words or less that you
would like to appear in a future ROTA
newsleter. Include a photo if possible.
Submit
all stories to Editor PDG
Karin Blue
at Email
or Email
and a copy to Email.
|
Africa
District
Websites
Click
numbers to visit
sites
D9210
|
East
Africa Region |
|
 Comoros,
Djibouti, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar,
Mauritus, Mayotte,
Reunion, Seychelles,
Tanzania and
Uganda
|
|
Nelson Nkawalya, Chair
 Kaushik Manek, Vice
Chair
|
North
Africa Region |
 Algeria,
Egypt, Mauritania,
Morocco (incl Western
Sahara), Sudan and
Tunisia
 Mohamed Delawar,
Chair |
 Ridha Souissi, Vice
Chair
|
South
Africa Region |
|
 Angola, Botswana, Lesotho,
Malawi,
Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa,
Swaziland,
Zambia and
Zimbabwe
|
 June
Weber, Chair  Josh
Chimhanda, Vice Chair
|
West
Africa Region |
|
 Benin,
Burkina Faso,
Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde,
Central African
Republic, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire,
Democratic Republic
of Congo, Equatorial
Guinea, Gabon, The Gambia,
Ghana, Guinea,
Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali,
Niger, Nigeria,
Republic of Congo (Brazzaville),
Rwanda, Sao
Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra
Leone, Togo
and
Tunisia
|
 Michael
Olawale-Cole, Chair  Yaovi Tigoe, Vice
Chair
|
Did
You Know? |
|
|
|
You may be able
to increase the
financial contributions of
your club members by
offering options. Many
organizations have
donor levels based on
financial
contribution.
Be sure to include the various
benefits of
each level and suggest donor
upgrades. Add
a “Find out more…” link to
additional
information on your website.
|
| |
