Our President went fishing while guest speakers Lorna and Linley tell us about a initiative to combat homelessness, Career's Day, Emma's exploits, Sybille in Stanford and David visits a Rotary Club in Romania....

From the Pen of the President....

No fish but great time with good friends, beautiful country and warm weather!! 

Please remember to bring potential members on Friday - nothing like Rotary and friendship!!--

Ann

Last Friday....

...We not only had two guest speakers to talk to the club about their endeavours to combat homelessness, but we also had a visiting Rotarian Lewis Lee from China gracing our presence. Lewis heads up Huawei in South Africa.

As is tradition Club banners were exchanged. 

Our guest speakers were Lorna Wridgway and Linley April, who both work for U-Turn Homeless Ministries.

U-Turn was founded in 1997 in Cape Town and there is no doubt that they have made a significant dent in combatting the problem of homelessness in the Mother City.

The end of 2022 saw the launch of U-Turn in Johannesburg, the first step of becoming a truly national organization. U-Turn has refined a four-phase skills development model that meets homeless clients where they are at, and walks the complete journey out of homelessness with them.

They have a very stable foot print in Cape Town where they have three transitional houses and have created work spaces for 136 "champions" as Linley calls their employees who work in their thrift shops, where they manage to generate an impressive income of  R35million per annum; but with running costs amounting to R700 000 per house, every cent earned is accounted for.

U-Turn's biggest challenge in Johannesburg is trying to find accommodation as they are unable to find affordable transitional housing for their "clients".

Linley is a seasoned minister and motivator and it was very evident how passionate he is about his role at U-Turn, where he says he has found his niche.

Lorna is involved in developing scalable training content for their Client Journey Model and she is assisting with the setup and management of new U-Turn Centres within Johannesburg.

Both Linley and Lorna can both be termed People of Action and they will no doubt work tirelessly in making a success of U-Turn in Johannesburg.

Rosebank Rotary's Gift to the Youth - a Career Choice...

A career is something that you will more than likely do for the rest of your active life, so you would definitely want to do something that you enjoy doing and that gives you satisfaction.

Choosing a career based on your passion will allow you to comfortably settle into your profession and excel while overcoming challenges with minimum effort. In a country where youth unemployment reaches almost 60% there are numerous obstacles. Hence, the more we are able to assist and support our youth to navigate these difficult waters, the better.

At Holy Family College in Parktown on a chilly Saturday winter’s morning, we had an array of exhibitions representing the ABCs of careers, ranging from accounting to animation, banking to beauty, construction to crypto currencies. 

PE Costa Qually opened the Careers’ Day and welcomed all.

 And then the school hall was abuzz with questions and explanations, demos and interactions. The Rotarians certainly had their hands full waitering coffee and scones up and down to keep presenters’ throats “well oiled” for the next set of waiting scholars.

Even though many of schools have already started writing exams the event was still well attended, although the numbers were marginally down from last year.

The presenters certainly made a difference to curious minds, which will hopefully help the scholars to find their place to contribute to a more prosperous and stable South African society.

A heartfelt thank you to Bela Carvalho from Holy Family College for the logistical arrangements, the schools attending and bussing their scholars on a early highveld winter’s morning, the Rosebank Rotarians ensuring that all felt welcome and looked after and our presenters that shared their knowledge, passion and insight.

(From the Pen of Michelle von Benecke)

Emma's Exploits...

Last week Emma spent some time at her host home, going to school, running errands like taking the cat to the vet and attending some birthday parties. Her councillor’s son turned 14 and Emma gifted him 3 lovely pairs of socks with hadedas, Cape Town and the Soweto towers on them which he wore the whole week! She visited her exchange student friends in Dresden, where they explored the city like the Blue Wonder Bridge (Loschwitzer Brücke) and ended up making tacos.

It was also the first time that she was allowed to catch the train on her own.

She is leaving today for a week to attend a Rotary outing with another district. She will be back on Saturday.

Safe travels and enjoy Emma....

And what is RC Stanford getting up to...

Sybille reports that in Stanford many children will benefit from RC Stanford's  Project Winter Warmth.

Last Thursday and Friday gogos, mothers and children arrived at the local community hall where they received a blanket and were also allowed to chose either a  beanie, scarf of neck warmer which had been lovingly knitted by a various ladies in the community.

The Stanford community is very supportive of Rotary projects and were very generous in donating funds to enable the club to purchase a substantial amount of blankets for this year's Project Winter Warmth.

David visits RC Timisoara in Romania....

The first club in Romania was the Bucharest club, founded 20 May 1929 4 days ahead of Timisoara.  

Rotary was banned in Romania when the Communists took over after the World War 2. 

David and his daughter Kirstie  had the opportunity of attending a meeting (held in a wine cellar). RC Timisoara has 70 members of which half are active. He exchanged banners with the Incoming President.  It was a very friendly evening, all members present spoke English and they were very keen to know more about our club and South Africa and even suggested an inter club Friendship Exchange. 

Picturesque Timisoara in Romania is only a two hour drive from Belgrade, which is in Serbia.

And some final photos taken in another pretty town called Zemun, 14 km from Belgrade on the Danube.

This Friday...

.... we will be presenting Ntombikayise Kgosana with this year's Lester Connock Award and Bursary.

Ntombi is a professional nurse working in the neonatal intensive care unit at a regional hospital in Tshwane.

She is a second year post graduate student pursuing a Masters Nursing Degree at the University of Witwatersrand.

She is passionate about improving nursing practice and healthcare outcomes, particularly maternal and child health. Her dedication to academic excellence is reflected in her status as a Golden Key recipient and the recipient of several undergraduate merit awards in leadership and academics.

For her master's programme, she has chosen to focus on family-centred care in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), specifically implementing care-by-parent interventions in a regional hospital setting. This research area aligns with her belief that neonatal care should be approached holistically, considering the involvement of relevant family systems rather than focusing solely on individual care.

Ntombi's  application for this year's Lester Connock Award and bursary was compelling, and she will no doubt be able to put this bursary to good use for her thesis.

IT IS BRING-A-BUDDY FRIDAY, AND YOUR BUDDIES WILL BE WARMLY WELCOMED.