Last week it was the Rotary Foundation. This week it's what our Rotary Global Grant has achieved, Careers Morning and Refugees.

Last Week
Our Rotary Foundation Chair, Mike Lamb, gave us an excellent overview of what the Rotary Foundation does and how much, as a District, we benefit in terms of contributions to the Foundation.
There is always the danger in any Rotary Club of only concentrating on the club and its affairs and tending to ignore the wider picture of what it means to belong to a huge international organisation and the benefits that can bring to the club and also to individual members.  Rotary is unique in terms of its Foundation and we, as a club, are well aware of the benefits through our successfully completed Global Grant for the Bophelo Palliative Care Project and the major contributions that we have made to the Foundation.....R100 000 to commemorate the centenary of the Foundation is just one example.

This Week
We start with dinner at Dolci Cafe on Tuesday night and it looks as if there will be 16 of us to entertain Doreen Busingye, our RI Global Grant Auditor.



Then on Friday we have lunch at Old Eds with lots of guests from Baragwanath who are involved in Bophelo and Doreen Busingye will address us.  I've been unable to find a photograph of her or anything about her.  If something comes my way before Friday I will put in here.  We'll have approximately 50 people for lunch on that day.

Finally it's Careers Morning at Holy Family Parktown.  Many thanks to all those Rotarians who have offered to assist.  Even if you are not helping you are welcome to call in and see what we are up to.




Don't make a mistake and go to Wanderers on Friday!

Rotary Leadership Institute Course.
Last weekend's courses were cancelled owing to insufficient numbers.  The next course will be on Saturday 28th April in Bedfordview.  Please make a note and wait for the official notification.

Discon
If anyone has booked and is not able to attend please let me know.  I stepped down to allow others to go but have subsequently discovered that I really should be there.

Rotary Anns' Appeal for Prizes

The annual Rosebank Rotary Anns Bridge Drive is fast approaching and we have sold all the tables!  We are known for our lovely prizes.  Could the Rotarians support our bridge drive by providing a prize or two?  Bottles of wine are always welcome as are chocolates.  If anyone would like to offer a time-share week that they can’t use this year, this would be great.

Looking forward to your generous response.  You could give things to Les Short on a Friday or contact me on sanjune@icon.co.za

With kind regards

June Virtue

As thousands of refugees streamed into Berlin, they strained the health care system. Rotarian and physician Pia Skarabis-Querfeld spent the last three years building a network of volunteer doctors to help those in need.

On the nightly news and around her city, Pia Skarabis-Querfeld saw the refugees arriving in Berlin after fleeing war, persecution, and poverty in their home countries.

Wanting to help, she gathered a bag of clothes to donate and headed to a nearby gym filled with refugees.

What began as a single act of charity eventually evolved into an all-encompassing volunteer project: Over the next three years, Skarabis-Querfeld would build and run a network that, at peak times, would include more than 100 volunteers helping thousands of refugees at community centers, tent camps, and other shelters across the city. 

Today, her nonprofit, Medizin Hilft  (Medicine Helps), continues to treat patients with nowhere else to turn.

That day she went to the gym was a few days before Christmas 2014. Skarabis-Querfeld had been busy with work and preparing for the holidays. She was looking forward to a much-needed break, and she thought clothes for the refugees would be a kind gesture befitting the spirit of the season. 

When she arrived at the gymnasium to drop off her donation, Skarabis-Querfeld found sick children, most of them untreated because hospitals in the area were overrun. Helpers were not allowed to give out pain relievers or cough syrup due to legal constraints. All they could do was send people to the emergency room if they looked extremely ill.

This is what a Rotary Global Grant can achieve.

Seeing this, and knowing about the treacherous journeys the refugees had just made across land and sea, Skarabis-Querfeld, who is a medical doctor and Rotarian, returned that same afternoon with medical supplies and her husband, Uwe Querfeld, who is a professor of pediatrics and a Rotarian. 

The couple spent most of that holiday treating patients in the gymnasium. 

“The suffering of the people, their bitter fate, it wouldn’t let go of me,” says Skarabis-Querfeld.

‘You just don’t forget’

In 2015, the German ministry in charge of refugees received more than 1 million applications for asylum, straining the public health system. 

Germany was a popular destination during the mass migration of people from Syria and other countries with conflict, in part because Chancellor Angela Merkel embraced them. Unlike some other European leaders, Merkel said it was Germany’s responsibility to help, and she called on citizens to welcome those escaping hardship elsewhere. 

By 2017, the political winds had changed. Many Germans had become indifferent to or skeptical about the immigrants. The balance of power in Germany’s parliament shifted during the September election, and the country continues to grapple with the logistics and cost of helping refugees and their families.  

While the politics played out at the famed Riechstag building in the heart of Berlin, Skarabis-Querfeld and other volunteers were treating patients only a few kilometers away. 

“I had a young girl whose whole family was almost beaten to death because they were Christians,” says Skarabis-Querfeld, a member of the Rotary Club of Berlin-Tiergarten. “The girl began to have epilepsy after being beaten into a coma. I’m not used to seeing these kinds of scars and burns.” 

In another case, Skarabis-Querfeld treated a Syrian girl named Saida who had fever and bronchitis. When the examination was almost over, Skarabis-Querfeld noticed Saida was limping. She coaxed Saida to take off her shoes and saw both feet were infected. 

“I had seen a lot of children with small shoes on. Some had probably started walking in those shoes and worn them for one year,” Skarabis-Querfeld says.

“The soles of both feet were infected. These are things that you just don’t forget.” 

After she treated Saida with antibiotics, the girl from the war-torn country took an interest in helping at the clinic when the doctor was in. She would wait at the door half an hour before Skarabis-Querfeld arrived and delight in taking on small tasks, such as making copies. 

“Her biggest wish was to become a doctor,” Skarabis-Querfeld says. “I told her, ‘You’re a smart girl. You can do it.’”